Question on # of abilities classes get

Arazis

Hail,

Checking out this here game and was reading the website. They gave an example of a Monk class getting 109 skills/spells/etc! That is a lot and I have never seen such a number before!

Do all classes get 100+ abilities/etc?
How do you play a class with so many choices and everything?
If someone could explain this to me that would be most helpful in choosing a class and better understanding what to play!

TY

Alaskar

You're usually limited by a type of balance, with each class having a physical balance and a mental balance (Equilibrium) that acts as a cool down until other abilities can be used. Each ability has a different balance cost/time which can be influenced by certain things, either positively or negatively. Then certain classes have their own balances for additional abilities, and certain abilities may require one balance but consume neither, or require both and only require one. I'll give an example, based on Magi

Magi uses physical balance for it's primary PvP attack, staffstrike, which breaks limbs on the target player. Each staffstrike consumes like 2 seconds of balance, and requires equilibrium and balance to use. 

In addition, Magi use their golem abilities to supplement their staffsrike, which requires and equilibrium but not balance, and consumes equilibrium.

So the golem attack has to follow the staff attack, and once both have been used the Magi is completely off balance, both physical and mental (Equilibrium).

Magi also have an ability which actively cures an affliction, called bloodboil. It requires them to have both balance and Equilibrium, and costs Equilibrium to use, but then has its own balance timer before it may be used again. To I use Bloodboil, in 3ish seconds I regain equilibrium to do something else, but the ability bloodboil is unusable for like 20 seconds.

Some classes have 'pets' that they can order, which have a separate balance, and there are other balance types in the game.

As for number of abilities used in combat, that's a hard answer. I'l assume we're talking about PvP again, and I can only speak as a Magi, but to be successful requires deep knowledge of all your abilities, so you can be creative in their use and react quickly to changing scenarios. As for Magi, the active abilities I expect to use in combat would be......staffcast, staffstrike, freeze, deepfreeze, stormhammer, holocaust, transfix, geyser, aerial, destabilise (which has at least 5 useful variances), flood, quake, suppression, ring, icewall, erode, bloodboil, the golem abilities: hypnotise, disfigure, smash, pummel, scorch, conflagrate, timeflux, dehydrate, hypothermia, destroy, inferno, the 4 impurities, scald, and maybe one or two others.

At least 37 activie abilities I should understand and be prepared to use whenever. Then I have preparatory abilities, most with passive effects, that are good to have, including defences. 24 Crystalism abilities I should bring with me, which produce passive effects, and then around 10-20 defences.

tl;dr Different abilities use/require different balances/timers/cooldowns but can typically be used as many times as needed. Abilities are often augmented by other abilities, which form a combo of sorts. 

Trevize

All classes (except Dragon) get three skills with numerous abilities.

In most cases, the abilities have a specific use or work together.

Passive: Passive abilities are always-on. Not really much to say here.

Defences: some you cast once and you get a defense of certain types. Others you cast to cure yourself of something.

Hunting (pve): if there are multiples, they are usually meant to replace each other as you go further. Magi, for example. They start with stonefist, you learn firelash early, then get staffcast. One you get firelash you won't use stonefist, and once you get staffcast you won't use firelash. There are some odd ones such as, using magi again, stormhammer - you won't use that often, but it may be useful sometimes.

Utility/Travel: some classes (monk and blademaster being good examples) that don't have a ton of utility or travel. others, such as occultist, have quite a few. You use them when they're useful.

Combat (pve): in most cases, most abilities are made for combat. Damage, afflictions, hindering, limb damage, etc. You actually learn pretty quickly how these work together when you start fighting.

Trade skills: these aren't class-specific any more, but the abilities here are used for that trade. Tailoring, for example.

General skills: Everyone gets the same general skills. They have abilities that fall in the same groupings as above, mostly, but you get them regardless of class. Vision, Survival, Tattoos, etc.

Cynlael

Stonefist comes after firelash now, btw.

Trevize

Cynlael said:

Stonefist comes after firelash now, btw.

I hadn't noticed, it's been ages since I was a low level magi (10 years) but wow - that's a cool change for newbie magi.

Arazis

Hail once more,

Many thanks for the reply.

Most useful! During combat...how many abilities on average you normally use? I know there are many classes, so just looking for general amounts, ie: 5-10.

Can you simply use the same ability over and over again or is there a chaining/combo/cool down system for best results? Realize again, this varies on class, I'm sure, so again just looking for general infos to get an idea on how classes handle here

TY!

Trevize

Arazis said:

Hail once more,

Many thanks for the reply.

Most useful! During combat...how many abilities on average you normally use? I know there are many classes, so just looking for general amounts, ie: 5-10.

Can you simply use the same ability over and over again or is there a chaining/combo/cool down system for best results? Realize again, this varies on class, I'm sure, so again just looking for general infos to get an idea on how classes handle here

TY!

For utility you'll use them all when they're needed.
For hunting, you'll use only the strongest one, and 2-5 for battlerage.
For defences, you'll probably put them all up, varies based on class so could be zero and could be several!
For combat, you'll use many of your skills. Some combat abilities are staples - you'll use them more than anything else - but most of the rest are situational. Some are useless, but that number is less than in previous years.

Rest assured that, aside from combat, it's not that complicated. PVP gets really intense at the top levels, but even lower level/group combat you could rely on just a few and do ok.

Arazis

Alaskar said:

You're usually limited by a type of balance, with each class having a physical balance and a mental balance (Equilibrium) that acts as a cool down until other abilities can be used. Each ability has a different balance cost/time which can be influenced by certain things, either positively or negatively. Then certain classes have their own balances for additional abilities, and certain abilities may require one balance but consume neither, or require both and only require one. I'll give an example, based on Magi

...

At least 37 activie abilities I should understand and be prepared to use whenever. Then I have preparatory abilities, most with passive effects, that are good to have, including defences. 24 Crystalism abilities I should bring with me, which produce passive effects, and then around 10-20 defences.

tl;dr Different abilities use/require different balances/timers/cooldowns but can typically be used as many times as needed. Abilities are often augmented by other abilities, which form a combo of sorts. 

Hail!

This was such an informative post, it really painted a clear picture. The depth offered here seems to be a lot and that is very appealing. This reminds me of the card game: Magic. Many possibilities, many results. Some cards useful for only certain situations, etc.

What is a good class, you suggest, to try for a New Player. I made an Apostate, I believe, it was. Seemed interesting. Is there an elemental magic user class?

Alaskar

Magi and sylvan come to mind. I'm not too great in combat so I can't say a lot about either. I know I immensely enjoy magi, and I have a great balance of utility, group abilities and room control, as well as a fairly potent offense.

Tharvis

technically Priest uses elemental magic for their Healing branch, too

Arazis

Hail once more fellow posters,

Looked over the classes and abilities. Seems many of them are PVP only?
Typically, for MUDs, I enjoy playing PVE(FPS games are my PVP fix ). Is Achaea mostly a PVP game? What are losses in death? EQ/Skills/Levels?  Don't mind PVP if the losses are not a time investment, ie: lose all my equipment. If just a bit of gold/trophy (ie: ear in D2), that cool.

Also, what other IRE games that is like Achaea depth/complexity but focuses more on PVE?

Many thanks folks!

Sena

Almost all attacks are PvP only, PvE is fairly simple. For the most part, aside from battlerage (a collection of 6 abilities for each class that are only used in PvE), each class has one or two attacks to use against denizens. Some have a primary PvE attack and then a second one that's usually not as good but can be situationally useful, some get different attacks as they advance in skill but only ever use the best one they have available, some can use a lot of their attacks against denizens but there's only one option that's actually useful.

Outside of the battlerage afflictions (you can see HELP BATTLERAGE for details), direct damage is typically the only thing you can do to denizens. That's not to say there's no strategy involved in PvE, the strategy just doesn't really involve choosing how to attack.

Most of your non-attack abilities (travel/utility/defensive/support/buffing abilities) are still useful outside of PvP.

When you die, you lose a small amount of experience (if you're not very good at earning experience and you're around level 75-85 though, or if you die repeatedly, the loss might not be so small), and if you're carrying any gold that's not in a container, you'll drop it (along with any items that drop on logout, like quest items and riftable items that aren't in the rift). If you don't have some form of resurrection available (usually that will require the assistance of a living person), it will take a couple minutes to come back to life. Typically, a single death isn't a big deal, but multiple deaths (which could be pretty likely if you're involved in PvP a lot) can add up to quite a bit of lost time.

There are ways to participate in PvP without much risk of experience loss though; when defending your city against a sanctioned raid, you won't lose any experience from death, and if you fight in the arena (whether it's a duel or an event like a free-for-all or rampage) you won't actually die, unless you specifically choose a duel to the death. World games/events (like CTFs, egghunts, foozles, etc.) often disable experience loss for participants as well.