Stats

This section contains information from Alpha-1 testing. It will be updated when new information is made available.

Character stats and attributes.

Stat	Base stat	Level 1 Cleric	Level 1 Mage	Level 1 Tank
Health.	Health	224
Mana.	Mana	293
Power.	Power	10
Dexterity.	Dexterity	10
Constitution.	Constitution	10
Will.	Will	12
Wisdom.	Wisdom	14
Mentality.	Mentality	13
Physical Damage Bonus.	Power	13
Physical Disable Modifier.	Power	12
Physical Critical Damage Bonus.	Power	12
Physical Skill Cooldown.	Dexterity	6
Physical Critical Rate Bonus.	Dexterity	6
Physical Evasion Bonus.	Dexterity	7
Physical Accuracy.	Dexterity	192
HP Regeneration.	Constitution	3
Physical Defense Mitigation.	Constitution	7
Physical Disable Defense	Constitution	7
Physical Block Chance.	Constitution	17
Magical Attack Damage.	Will	24
Magical Critical Damage	Will	23
Magical Disable Chance	Will	13
Magical Casting Speed	Wisdom	6
Magical Cooldown Modifier	Wisdom	7
Magical Critical Rate.	Wisdom	7
Magical Accuracy	Wisdom	8
Mana Regeneration	Mentality	3
Magical Defense Mitigation	Mentality	8
Magical Disable Defense	Mentality	8
Magical Block Chance.	Mentality	18

Players will have significant agency over the allocation of their stat progression.

• Base stats defined by a character's primary archetype can be improved based on gear, tattoos, and other enhancements, such as socketed items.

You will have significant agency over the allocation of your stat progression. Yes, some of that will be baked-in based on the archetype selection, but a large portion of that will come down to your itemization selection, your selection of tattoos, and other ancillary types of augments and benefits you can apply to specific items, such as socketing. – Steven Sharif

• There will be diminishing returns on certain stats, but there won't be hard caps.

Stat growth

Some of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.

Stat growth proceeds in the following order:

1. The race "seeds" a player's base stats.
2. The primary archetype grows the base stats.
3. The secondary archetype (class) does not contribute to stat growth. This is a revision of an earlier statement.

Different races have different stat compositions. Those stats can be important, but we also don't want them to dictate any kind of meta for what classes are best used with different races. – Steven Sharif

Choice of profession does not affect a player's stats.

Gear has approximately a 40-50% influence on a players overall power in the game.

Stat adjustment (via the Tattoo system)

Tattoos in the Alpha-2 character creator (first pass).

As of right now definitively there is going to be a tattooed system which will allow certain slots for you to apply stat migration, but it's a give-and-take relationship. There will be higher quality magical tattoos that can be applied to the character in order to adjust stats. – Steven Sharif

Tattoos in Ashes of Creation refers to.

• Decals applied through the character creator.
  • The developers are considering whether to allow custom tattoos to be uploaded by users.

• Cosmetic items that allow players to customize their character in-game.
  • These might be "sleeves" applied to different parts of the body.
  • It may also be possible to create whole body sleeves.

• Tattoos that can be applied to a character to adjust their stats.
  • These will have slots to allow stats to be migrated with a give-and-take relationship.
  • Higher quality magical tattoos can be applied to adjust stats.
    • They may also provide stat augments or other boosts.

Tattoos can be removed.

Stats on gear

Crafters will be able to assign different skills/abilities and stats on gear.

• Master crafters will be able to influence several (but not all) stats on their crafted items.
  • Stats on crafted items will vary based on the item's rarity.
• There will also be methods of moving stat blocks around but this won't necessarily be an easy task.
• All gear will be able to be assigned any stat.

Crafters will be able to 'rejigger' stat blocks; and there will be a couple of other ways to move things around to create both the look and the stat block that you're looking for. It's not always going to be easy. There will be a lot of challenges involved with that. But the goal is to give you guys the option to customize your gear the way you want them to be. – Jeffrey Bard

Not all armor sets will be the cookie cutter kind of set. They will have the influences from the crafter available in it, if it's a crafted set. – Steven Sharif

Gear is broken down into Core Stats and Additional Stats.

Gear progression

In-game achievable sword and polearm 3D renders.

Power creep is a balance issue... When it comes to gear progression specifically, the idea is to create an open market that is not heavily dependent on soulbound items; and having many item sinks and gold sinks within that economy that allows for the potential degradation and loss of assets within that closed economy; and not introduce items from the market that companies put in from a pay-to-win perspective or from a pay-to-convenience perspective that undermines the economy that players have built. That is a huge mistake that companies have made in the past and that lends to the imbalancing of what designers maybe have actually balanced well. – Steven Sharif

Weapons have their own progression paths.

• Each type of weapon has its own skill tree that grants passive skills and proc effects and other status conditions.
• The weapon use combo system determines special effects that proc based on weapon progression.
• Ancillary effects proc based on enchantment types.
• Gear enhancements (power stones) can be applied to add elemental or energy types of damage.
• Dual wielded weapons will have its own progression based on weapon type.
• Weapon proficiency (based on length of use of a weapon) is not a planned feature.

Q: Are weapons balanced towards a proficiency system (i.e. the longer I use a sword, the better my damage will be), or will it be a normal RPG stat system with no long-term scaling?

A: We will not be using a proficiency system as described, but players will have passives available in their skill tree that will increase effectiveness of certain weapons. Becoming a master of swords will be something that is possible, just not in that particular manner. – Sarah Flanagan

Ashes of Creation is all about providing many progression paths... The reason why we don't like the term endgame is because with the amount of progression that's available with the amount of diversity and player agency that impacts the world... We kind of want the weapon system [to] add an element of that as well... You can determine special effects that proc from currently the combo system; you can determine ancillary effects that proc based on enchantment types; you can power stone weapons to add different either elemental types of damage and/or energy that kind of play rock-paper-scissor with player defenses ... and then you can skill tree out how those effects that are granted ... you can make them better you can branch them off into a different direction. – Steven Sharif

Gear enhancement

Gear enhancements (power stones/runes) can be applied to weapons to add elemental or energy types of damage.

• Gear enhancements do not increase an item's level requirement.

We are very likely going to have a rune system and then we'll have the ability to sort of enchant weapons outside of that too... That's not always going to be like a vertical progression... Some of it's going to be giving up something to get something else; so maybe I do less physical damage but more magical damage, that kind of thing. – Jeffrey Bard

• Progression in various PvP systems will unlock enchantment stones that grant temporary PvP-focused benefits to gear (via a socketing system). Performance is measured over six month PvP seasons.
  • Guild wars.
  • Arenas.
  • Caravan PvP.

It's not as though you're going to necessarily acquire these once and then you're set for your PvP enchantments, but instead you'll have to continually perform month after month in order to keep having those slotted enchantments. – Steven Sharif

Enchanting

Enchanting is not an artisan profession in its own right. Scribes create scrolls that can be utilized by different professions to create enchantments relating to that profession.

• Enchantment scrolls can be sold on the open market.

• Enchanting does not increase an item's level requirement.

You don't really push a particular item's level requirement or the identity of that item. You can enhance it, you can add enchantments to it, but it's still the item it is. – Steven Sharif

• Enchanting weapons applies visual effects, such as glows and colors.

Power creep

The developers intend to limit power creep via item sinks, the lack of gear binding, and the absence of pay-to-win or pay-to-convenience in Ashes of Creation.

Health

Health is a stat in Ashes of Creation.

• Players that are not in the same party, raid, alliance, or guild will not be able to see other player's health percentages or exact health bar values.
  • This is not currently implemented in Alpha-1.

• A player's name plate will deteriorate to give an indication of how much damage they have taken.

With regards to seeing another player's health: As you know their name plate will deteriorate or give you an indication of like hey they've taken damage they're significantly injured, but you're not going to get a percentage. You're not gonna get an exact bar value, unless you're in their party or in their raid. – Steven Sharif

Mana

Resting and mana regeneration.

As you know, a classic MMO thing to do is to sit and rest as you get your resources back. – Steven Sharif

Mana is a universal resource/energy in Ashes of Creation that keeps corresponding stats for mana pool, consumption and regeneration relevant.

• All archetypes use mana to varying degrees.
  • Even pure melee players use mana to manipulate The Essence for their extraordinary abilities.
• There are various ways to mitigate mana consumption, such as gear and set bonuses, tattoos, enchantments, and specs.
  • Sitting increases mana regeneration while out of combat.

Mana management I think, not just for mage players but for really every class, is a relevant resource mechanic that they have to take into consideration when they're utilizing their rotations; and there are going to be abilities that will sap your mana faster than others; and they're going to be situational. Now, with that blanket statement of mana is always relevant, there is also going to be mechanics and/or class energies and abilities that you can spec into to help mitigate that. There's itemization that you can utilize from a set bonus perspective, or certain types of weapons and tattoos that you can acquire. There are certain enchantments that you can acquire that might reduce the cost of mana use, that might increase your amount of regeneration, that might increase your mana total pool. There are even specs that you can build towards if mana management is your issue. So we want to make it a compelling case that you need to think about mana use because you don't just want to go 100% all the time with no downside to that. That's a very boring type of interaction. – Steven Sharif

Damage

There won't be any damage dampening due to differences in levels in either PvP or PvE.

Damage numbers will not be so large as to be meaningless.

We don't see the need to have these enormous numbers that are really start to lose meaning. That seems to be an innate design issue with other games as they try to balance the damage output in PvP and in PvE; but our design system allows for a more manageable damage protocol for PvE and PvP to be shared; and those damage protocols relate more to lower numbers. – Steven Sharif

Death by falling is possible.

• Fall damage that occurs while mounted will be first applied to the mount; and if the mount dies as a result, then the remaining damage may overflow onto the player, but this will be determined based on testing.

Resistances

Different damage types are mitigated by the defensive stats (resistances) on different types of armor.

Certain damage types will be strong or weak against certain enemy types. So you'll have to be somewhat smart about who you're bringing where, or what kind of abilities or specs. Obviously, you'll be able to do the content, but you'll have an easier time with certain contents if you're using a certain spec over others. – Tradd Thompson

• Magic damage is mitigated by cloth armor (light armor).
• Physical damage is mitigated by plate armor (heavy armor).
• There will be resistances to elemental damage.
• Holy/radiant damage are modifying energy types that have corresponding synergies and resistances.
  • Undead mobs are weak against holy magic.
• There is also non-mitigated damage.
• Monsters will have certain types of resistances based on its type.

  Not every monster is going to have unique resistances. They'll share groups of types of resistances based on whether that monster is a particular elemental affinity or a particular heavy armor, particular weapon type, you know stuff like that. So there will be resistances groups that are shared by certain types of monsters and their location and as it relates to their lower background and stuff like that. – Steven Sharif

• Players will be able to counter resistances with resistance penetration stats.

PvX

We like to really refer to ourselves as a PvX game, because in those systems of PvP, PvE, crafting they're all intertwined: They're interdependent on each other... Our system of development really requires some interdependence there between those things. You're going to need a crafter to give you the best items. You're going to need PvPers to secure cities and castles. You're gonna need PvErs to take down those world bosses for those materials to craft. – Steven Sharif

Ashes is a comprehensive game. It is not a PvP focused or a PvE focused, it is a comprehensive PvX game and as a result these systems are all interconnected and have to coexist with one another with certain types of mechanisms that can provide that give and take, that push and shove. – Steven Sharif

Ashes of Creation is a PvX game. Players will naturally encounter both PvP and PvE elements. It is unlikely that a player could purely focus on just PvP or just PvE.

• There is a balance between PvP and PvE in Ashes of Creation. Around 80% of the content is open-world, where healthy competition is an instigator for player friction; for potential cooperation; for the ability to yield alliances; and the political theater that comes with it. This is an intended part of the PvX design of Ashes of Creation.

• All stats relate to a player's combat effectiveness in PvX.

• There won't be separate PvE and PvP servers but some servers may be more PvP focused than others.

• There will not be different PvP and PvE gear types.

• Progression in the game might require PvE elements.

We're very clear with our objective and philosophy on the game and we understand that they may not appeal to everybody. But you know it is an important reciprocal relationship between the content that's related to PvE and the content that's related to PvP and they feed off of each other. They're catalysts for change: Their progression, their development. It's things that people can value when they see something earned and they see something lost. That elicits an emotional response from the player: That they've invested time in to either succeed or fail; and PvP allows for that element to be introduced into gameplay. And we're very clear that is our objective: That risk versus reward relationship, that achievement-based mentality. Not everybody's going to be a winner and that's okay. – Steven Sharif

See also

• Combat
• Skills
• Races
• Classes
• Progression