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Discover how the best Ashes of Creation builds could work, as we deep dive into all components in this complete analysis guide.
Ashes of Creation is an MMORPG game where your actions permanently impact your game and the environment through the node system. Ashes of Creation (AoC) takes place in the post-apocalyptic fantasy world called Verra which our ancestors had fled. In this post, we explain how the best of Ashes of Creation Builds could work in a complete analysis. From nodes to gear to skills it will all be woven into the best Ashes of Creation builds.
This post was made before Alpha 2 testing.
How Will the Best Ashes of Creation Builds Work – Complete Analysis
Builds in Ashes of Creation are complex combining racial choices, weapons, armor, classes, combat skills, and artisan skills. Depending on what you want to accomplish in the game. Do you wish to be a top-tier PVP warrior or rich and powerful merchant, the node system allows you flexibility in crafting your environment and the role in your build. The power, narrative, and general trajectory of the game will be shaped by these elements. Below is a list of all the different factors that determine the Ashes of Creation Builds:
- Character Creation: Customize the appearance, and choose a race that will have cosmetic effects on gear.
- Classes: Determines the core abilities and role of the character.
- Combat Skills: These are skills that would be gained based on your class to use while fighting.
- Gear: Weapons and armor, how to acquire, and what rank it is.
- Artisan Skills: Crafting, gathering, and processing are the skills that drive the economy.
- Node System: Zones of influence much like countries.
- Leveling: Each level you earn will give you 3 or more skill points
Ashes of Creation looks to stand out by implementing the node system, having sixty-four archetypes, a player-based economy, and a risk versus reward mentality. Delving further into all these elements will be essential when creating a build. Let us continue as we complete our analysis of how the Best Ashes of Creation Builds could work.
Character Creation
The most important aspect of character creation in Ashes of Creation is that your racial choice changes your cosmetics when it comes to your armor, weapons, and nodes. What Race you choose will not have any effect on stats in your build. This means you will be free to choose whatever race you want based on personal preference.
The character creator is one of the most detail-oriented character creators in the MMO market and mostly influences your build’s appearance rather than power. Built in-house by Intrepid Studios themselves. Here are all the components of Character Creation in Ashes of Creation:
- Origins – This is where you choose your race.
- Appearance – Customize the look of your character from hairstyles to weight and even minor details.
- Blending – Here you can take multiple presets and make your appearance between them.
- Sculpt – take the appearance that you have built or selected to click and drag to change features on a more detailed level.
Character Creation in Ashes of Creation will not influence your build other than cosmetically. Therefore, design and make what looks best to you.
Race
Races in Ashes will not affect the stats of your character and thus not impact or influence your AoC builds power. Additionally, race won’t likely affect the artisan system. Race in Ashes simply changes the appearance of the armor for your character. If you have the same armor set as someone playing a different race it will look different but still give the same stats. Race will also change the size of your weapon but like armor will not have any stat changes. Below are the known races you can play as in Ashes of Creation:
| Parent Race | Race | Secondary Race |
|---|---|---|
| Aelan Humans | Kaelar | Vaelune |
| Dünzenkell Dwarves | Dünir | Niküa |
| Kaivek Orcs | Ren’Kai | Vek |
| Pyrian Elves | Empyrean | Py’Rai |
Race also plays a role in the cultural influences of city nodes which will change the look layout and language of cities. The highest population majority of a race will have the highest cultural presence in a city node. This means that NPCs would be the majority’s race. The building designs would also match culturally to the race with the most players in a node. Lastly, both race and character creation have little impact on your build’s performance and mainly are for cosmetic purposes.
Classes
In Ashes of Creation, there will be 8 Archetypes to choose from at character creation and 64 classes that complement your original class selection. Within each Archetype, players may have access to augmentations or paths that allow for further specialization. These augments could modify existing abilities or introduce new ones, catering to different playstyles and builds.
Below is a list of all eight classes in Ashes of Creation and what you can expect from the gameplay:
Archetypes
- Fighter – A melee DPS with a bit more defense.
- Tank – High defense and built to take the hits for the team.
- Rogue – Melee DPS that is stealthy and wants to take out targets quickly.
- Ranger – A DPS that wants to do damage from afar and maintain that distance.
- Mage – A ranged DPS that uses magic and casting.
- Summoner – This archetype can summon creatures to tank, damage, or heal.
- Cleric – The main healer of the party.
- Bard – Support archetype that buffs teammates with spells.
Archetypes in Ashes of Creation adhere to traditional MMORPG roles such as tank, healer, and damage dealer. The archetypes will determine what combat skills you will acquire. It is important to know that archetypes will not be balanced on a 1v1 basis. Keep in mind once you have selected your archetype you will not be able to change it. When it comes to creating the best build in Ashes of Creation, our complete analysis determines both Archetypes and Classes are the most impactful.
All Classes List
Once a player reaches level 25 they will be permitted to choose a class with a total of 64. The combination of archetypes and classes, along with augmentations, allows for versatile role combinations. This dual-class system enables players to blend abilities from two different classes, providing a wide range of tactical options and will be an important part of the build. Players will be able to respec subclasses.
Here are all 64 classes in Ashes of Creation:
- Acolyte
- Apostle
- Archwizard
- Argent
- Assassin
- Battle Mage
- Beastmaster
- Bladecaller
- Bladedancer
- Bowsinger
- Brood Warden
- Charlatan
- Conjurer
- Cultist
- Dreadnought
- Duelist
- Enchanter
- Falconer
- Guardian
- Hawkeye
- High Priest
- Highsword
- Hunter
- Keeper
- Knight
- Magician
- Minstrel
- Necromancer
- Nightshield
- Nightspell
- Oracle
- Paladin
- Predator
- Protector
- Scout
- Scion
- Scryer
- Sentinel
- Siren
- Shadowblade
- Shadow Caster
- Shadow Disciple
- Shadow Guardian
- Shadow Lord
- Shadowmancer
- Shaman
- Songcaller
- Song Warden
- Sorcerer
- Soulbow
- Soul Weaver
- Spellhunter
- Spellmancer
- Spellshield
- Spellstone
- Spellsword
- Strider
- Tellsword
- Templar
- Trickster
- Warden
- Warlock
- Weapon Master
- Wild Blade
Combat Skills
Ashes of Creation combat skills are determined by your primary class and you will have roughly 35 to choose from. Skill points as of now are said to accrue at XP milestones about each quarter of your level progression. Now your secondary class allows you to augment your skills that you took with your primary class. Therefore, instead of gaining new skills, you will be able to change the effects of your skills within your build.
There will also be “universal skills” that will be used by all classes and builds. Some examples of such skills are active blocking and dodge rolling. You will have to spend some skill points to unlock and enhance the universal skills that work best for you. These skill types will be tested in Alpha 2 and are subject to change.
Additionally, to make matters more complex, you will need to pick and choose what you want in your skill tree. You will not have enough skill points to fill out every skill tree for your build. So you will be able to have either a wide variety of spells, or you could choose to select fewer spells and make them more powerful.
Gear
Gear in Ashes of Creation are your weapons and armor and will give you stats and skills for your build. We know that you will be able to use any weapon with any class. Should you use any weapon with any class or build? The answer is probably not, because some of your primary skills will not be compatible with certain weapon types. Since we just talked about skills it is important to note that each weapon will have its skill tree. The “weapon combo system” is a system that takes the place of auto attacks and will be used while class skills are on cooldown. Each weapon type has a different combo system and you can spec into what types of procs your weapons have.
The last thing we need to go over is about Gear rarity. Below is a list of Gear rarity from weakest to strongest in Ashes of Creation:
- Poor
- Common
- Uncommon
- Rare
- Heroic
- Epic
- Legendary
- Artifact
The higher the rarity of your gear in Ashes of Creation the better it will tend to be for your build. It is important to know that Artifact gear will be limited to one of that specific item per server. You will be able to craft anything besides the Artifact tier. Most of the gear’s power will come from the crafting materials that you use and the crafting recipe you use.
Artisan Skills
Artisan skills will be the crafting skills in Ashes of Creation and will fuel the economy. There are a total of twenty-two artisan skills that fall under three types of artisan professions- gathering, processing, and crafting. You’re able to be a novice in all of them, an apprentice of five, a journeyman in four, a master in three, and a grandmaster in two.
Below are all the Artisan professions in Ashes of Creation:
| Gathering Professions | Processing Professions | Crafting Professions |
|---|---|---|
| Fishing | Alchemy | Arcane Engineering |
| Herbalism | Animal husbandry | Armor smithing |
| Hunting | Cooking | Carpentry |
| Lumberjacking | Farming | Jewel cutting |
| Mining | Lumber milling | Leatherworking |
| Metalworking | Scribing | |
| Stonemasonry | Tailoring | |
| Tanning | Weapon smithing | |
| Weaving |
For this reason, you will have to rely on others to get the best materials possible for your skill. So there will be a supply chain starting with the gathering professions that will collect the raw materials. Second, the processing professions whose job is refining those raw materials. Finally, the crafting professions will craft the product with a recipe and refined materials. The artisan classes will also have their skill trees to build into.
Node System
In Ashes of Creation, a node is a zone of influence like a country and can give benefits depending on the type of node. Depending on where you are harvesting materials, killing monsters, questing, or just playing the game in general you will be contributing to that node’s experience. There are 7 levels a node can go through starting with wilderness (level 0) to a Metropolis (level 6). There are also 4 different types of nodes, and depending on what the majority type of XP the node receives will determine the node type. Below is a chart of all the node types.
| Node type | Specialization | NPC types |
|---|---|---|
| Divine | Faith and skill/equipment augment focuses | Priests |
| Economic | Artisan and construction focus | Merchants |
| Military | Combat and class training focuses | Guards |
| Scientific | Scholars | Scolars |
There are advantages to helping level a node. One is to gain citizenship so that you can have access to their crafting benches. You can also have access to housing if you are a citizen of that node. If you are big on PvP then you can participate in the defense or offense in the siege of a node. Maybe you want to try and be the leader of the node either by a democratic election, trial by combat, or other means. Of course, depending on the type of node they will also have their unique benefits as well.
Nodes and Builds
In Ashes of Creation, your build will likely want to reflect the type of node you are a citizen of. For example, if you are part of an economic node and you want to rise to the top ranks in terms of government, you may want to spend more of your skill points on your artisan crafts. Likewise, if you want to rise in the ranks of a military node you would want to build towards PvP. With divine nodes, your build would likely be more PvE-oriented. Lastly scientific is more democratically focused so you can build more flexibly there.
Leveling
PvP, PvE, Exploration, Gathering/Processing/Crafting, Events/Quests, and Grinding mobs are all ways you can level up in Ashes of Creation depending on what the player likes doing. However, the creative director said that the main form of leveling will be grinding mobs and questing/events. Keep in mind it is said that there will not be any grindy or repetitive quests for leveling up. There are not expected to be any leveling boosts or auto-leveling up a character, so you will need to level up your character the old-fashioned way.
“The primary leveling systems will be questing story arcs/events and grinding mobs”
Steven Sharif (creative director)
When it comes to PvP or PvE in Ashes of Creation there will be no level scaling or damage dampening. That means if you fight with someone higher level you are going to have to beat them at your lower level. With PvE, that means you will not scale up to everyone else’s level to take on bosses or anything else PvE-related, and the level cap at launch is expected to be 50. While you are leveling make sure to stay up to date on gear for your build as some gear will be level-restricted.
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