Allods Online Forum » General Discussion » A question about archetype/class abilities

Are abilities classified by archetype or by class? What i ask here is if classes in the same archetype share the exact same abilities or not (apart from the 1 unique ability that distinguishes them as class). Does anyone know? Thanx in advance :)

Every archetype have its own abilities and its own mechanics. So-called "classes" within it are identical, but every character has a special ability that depends on his/her race and class. However most abilities are poor or broken clones of WoW ones (perhaps the only exception to this is Mystic).

For example, Mage core abilities and their WoW prototypes:

Icy Stream: a less useful variant of Frostbolt from WoW (negligible damage, channeled spell, slows more than untalented Frostbolt, stack of slowing debuff decreases on any other damage). Easy to see how this spell isn't as reliable as Frostbolt in group PvE/PvP. Theoretically it's a powerful CC that also adds strong damage debuff to the target. But as a channeled spell it's easily disrupted by incoming damage. You also need a good group coordination to use it as a CC.

Fiery Arrow: a pale clone of Fireball from WoW (faster cast time, less damage, no DoT component, no talents that could improve it other than some chance to restore mana on crit).

Discharge: a clone of Fireblast (less damage, no c/d, only deals significant damage if target has 25% or less HP left). Nice to finish off something before it melees you to death. But that's all.

Fireball: a clone of Flamestrike. AoE that, quite ironically, also deals the most burst damage to single target among all mage spells. Since you can pre-cast a spell in Allods Online and later use it instantly, basically it's AoE PoM-Pyroblast in terms of PvP.

Snowdrift: a more powerful clone of Priest's Shackle Undead (dumbed down so that it affects all kinds of mobs).

Stone Barrier: a clone of Priest's Inner Fire from WoW (decreases incoming physical damage, has 5-10 charges depending on spell rank).

Reflections: a variant or Rogue's Evasion/CloS (no c/d, 5-7 charges instead of a fixed duration). Unfortunately it's easily removed by AoE attacks so it's not as useful for PvP as it sounds.

Lighting Strike: a variant of a Priest's Mana Burn from WoW (burns a fixed amount of mana rather than a percentage, can be used as a generic DD spell against any target).

Meditation: a more powerful clone of Evocation (100% mana regen, 30 sec c/d).

Fire Wall: an AoE version of Druid's Entangling Roots (channeled, deals more damage, can affect more than one target). Since you have to cast it on the ground, proper targeting is very hard, especially in PvP vs. competent opponents.

Ball Lightnings: a clone of Arcane Missiles.

Icy Comet: a variant of Ice Lance (long cast time, low DPM, ray-like AoE that damage anyone between you and the target). I can't imagine how this spell can be reliably useful.

Elemental Shield: (same as above-mentioned Stone Barrier but works against spells).

Inflammation: a non-AoE variant of Dragon's Breath (single target, DoT instead of DD, 1 min c/d).

Rainbow Lightings: a ranged variant of Arcane Explosion (medium cast time, targeted AoE, adds blindness debuff).

Invisibility: a weaker clone of Invisibility (10 sec duration, 1 min c/d).

Tenes' Gift: probably the weirdest clone of Priest's Resurrection ever invented. 20 hours (!) c/d, doesn't work in battle.

Exodus: a clone of Portal.

It amazes me how you can make a judgement on how a game will play when it's not even in Beta yet. It would be better and you would be more credible if you waited and actually played the game.

Voidchaser

Dude, I'm from Russia and russian open beta started over a month ago. :-) Mind you, I know what I'm talking about. :-)

Originally posted by wowfan1996

All classes have their own abilities and they don't copy each other. Also every character has a special ability that depends on his/her race and class. However most classes have abilities that are poor or broken clones of WoW ones (perhaps the only exception to this is Mystic).

For example, Mage core abilities and their WoW prototypes:

Icy Stream: a less useful variant of Frostbolt from WoW (negligible damage, channeled spell, slows more than untalented Frostbolt, stack of slowing debuff decreases on any other damage). Easy to see how this spell isn't as reliable as Frostbolt in group PvE/PvP. Theoretically it's a powerful CC that also adds strong damage debuff to the target. But as a channeled spell it's easily disrupted by incoming damage. You also need a good group coordination to use it as a CC.

Fiery Arrow: a pale clone of Fireball from WoW (faster cast time, less damage, no DoT component, no talents that could improve it other than some chance to restore mana on crit).

Discharge: a clone of Fireblast (less damage, no c/d, only deals significant damage if target has 25% or less HP left). Nice to finish off something before it melees you to death. But that's all.

Fireball: a clone of Flamestrike. AoE that, quite ironically, also deals the most burst damage to single target among all mage spells. Since you can pre-cast a spell in Allods Online and later use it instantly, basically it's AoE PoM-Pyroblast in terms of PvP.

Snowdrift: a more powerful clone of Priest's Shackle Undead (dumbed down so that it affects all kinds of mobs).

Stone Barrier: a clone of Priest's Inner Fire from WoW (decreases incoming physical damage, has 5-10 charges depending on spell rank).

Reflections: a variant or Rogue's Evasion/CloS (no c/d, 5-7 charges instead of a fixed duration). Unfortunately it's easily removed by AoE attacks so it's not as useful for PvP as it sounds.

Lighting Strike: a variant of a Priest's Mana Burn from WoW (burns a fixed amount of mana rather than a percentage, can be used as a generic DD spell against any target).

Meditation: a more powerful clone of Evocation (100% mana regen, 30 sec c/d).

Fire Wall: an AoE version of Druid's Entangling Roots (channeled, deals more damage, can affect more than one target). Since you have to cast it on the ground, proper targeting is very hard, especially in PvP vs. competent opponents.

Ball Lightnings: a clone of Arcane Missiles.

Icy Comet: a variant of Ice Lance (long cast time, low DPM, ray-like AoE that damage anyone between you and the target). I can't imagine how this spell can be reliably useful.

Elemental Shield: (same as above-mentioned Stone Barrier but works against spells).

Inflammation: a non-AoE variant of Dragon's Breath (single target, DoT instead of DD, 1 min c/d).

Rainbow Lightings: a ranged variant of Arcane Explosion (medium cast time, targeted AoE, adds blindness debuff).

Invisibility: a weaker clone of Invisibility (10 sec duration, 1 min c/d).

Tenes' Gift: probably the weirdest clone of Priest's Resurrection ever invented. 20 hours (!) c/d, doesn't work in battle.

Exodus: a clone of Portal.

Could you not help people on these forums bash WoW more? World of Warcraft didn't invent elemental spells. Can't I play WoW and Eve and whatever I want in peace. I hate fanboys. :(

On topic note, I look forward to beta on the 10th.

Originally posted by wowfan1996

Dude, I'm from Russia and russian open beta started over a month ago. :-) Mind you, I know what I'm talking about. :-)

Have you played any MMO but WOW? You dont have to compare every single thing to it either, frankly its annoying. 

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Originally posted by Ranyr
World of Warcraft didn't invent elemental spells.

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Originally posted by Ranyr
Can't I play WoW and Eve and whatever I want in peace.

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Originally posted by parrotpholk
Have you played any MMO but WOW?

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So what you are saying wowfan1996 is that because wow ripped off some spells from previous games then noone else can ripoff those spells because only wow has the right to ripoff. With your logic, wow as a fantasy game is a ripoff of previous fantasy games.... And same goes for Aion for example, its a complete ripoff of other fantasy games cause its a fantasy game also!

Or action games with the gun in front of you, there are so many, i think they are all ripoffs of doom. Omg even adventure games, all of them have the same kind of riddles to solve, RIPOFF!

Get some real facts fanboi you make yourself look stupid....

I wont comment teh fact that the only game you know and you can compare with is wow, that only gives you so much credibility,... rofl...

" So? How is your statement related to the obvious rip-off of all core class abilities that I described in detail? :-)"

His staement is related to teh fact that wow ripped them off from other games, but that didn't mean a thing, so why bother with allods?

Use your brain ffs, use it and stop asking stupid questions... But we all know the brain of the average wow nerd, so we excuse you.....

 wowfan,  all your posts just bash this game, why do you still read these forums? I think everyone whos read your posts realizes this, it makes your points rather one sided. Can you not answer peoples questions without your obvious bias?

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Originally posted by aparatus
is that because wow ripped off some spells from previous games then noone else can ripoff those spells

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wow as a fantasy game is a ripoff of previous fantasy games

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i think they are all ripoffs of doom.

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I wont comment teh fact that the only game you know and you can compare with is wow

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His staement is related to teh fact that wow ripped them off from other games

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Originally posted by kosaboy
wowfan, all your posts just bash this game

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 you obviously just can't see past yourself, we could go on and on how WoW borrowed many things from EQ, but who cares? WoW is still a good game, it does not make it THEE original game, so saying any other game that borrows ideas from WoW is not good is just silly.  You can answer peoples questions about game mechanics without your obvious bias. or maybe you cant?

Not all core Mage abilities in WoW are derived from EQ. Please, do your own research before repeating some nonsense, posted by others.

P.S. This is my last answer to any kind of non-constructive criticism on these boards. I don't have time to argue with kids, sorry.

 I wasn't speaking about mage abilities, I was speaking on WoW in general, in my post I was responding to ALL of your posts comparing the game to WoW. I see now your resorting to insults which is usually the last resort of somebody with no point to make. Hopefully you begin to understand that your posts are all pretty one sided.

To wowfan1996,

....really?'......

....I mean really?....

I fail to see how you can't grasp what everyone is trying to tell you. I'll see if I can simplify things.

Fantasy Entertainment

1. Tolkien: had spells and magic and warriors and wizards.(Not an original idea, but i'm gonna start here.)

2. EQ: Took the ideas of spells and wizards and warriors and magic from Tolkien and others before it.

3. WoW: Took the ideas of spells and wizards and warriors and magic from EQ, Tolkien, and others before it.

4. Allods: Took the ideas of spells and wizards and warriors and magic from Wow, EQ, Tolkien, and others before it.

See what they all did? They made fantasy stories, and used material that was already established by others to give there fantasy story a recognizable fantasy feel.

You can trace any fantasy game to Tolkien, he CREATED fantasy as a genre. Before 1st mmorpg - ultima online, there were lots of ultima games, before that there were rogue likes, and after UO there were lots of other mmorpgs and ripoffs. But, truly, it doesnt matter.

What matters are original ideas and their execution. There are lots of games with great ideas but poor development, and vica versa, games like WoW, which rippedoff everything it could but polished and twisted it so good, that it became the top mmorpg (blizzard does it all the time, does it good).

You cant really measure a game, some elements, yes, sum of elements, no.

And... mystic BASH, mystic SMASH... was meleeing palading today when ran out of mana, he died of heart attack (my crits in his barriers finished him off)

AO is RAW (mob soloing your ass, YEA), but I hope it will get better, I like setting and many ideas, and AO has astral ships and gibberlings (3 times better and more hairy than gnomes)! Unless WoW rips it off, its not worth it.

ok, now the archtypes:

warrior: (guess what) melee character, energy based, has superiority which can be spend on higher lvl abilities, and 2 other "things" for tank/dd builds, pretty baddass and universal, but being melee character, he dies fast. Many skills get bonuses if enemy is knocked down or have an injury, which isnt hard to get if you are facing a warrior. Note that both paladin and warrior have charge (pala's has cast time though)
playstyle: comboslasher? hack n slash and then chop real good when you can, dont live as much as palas but they got their charm.

scout: rogue + archer, energy based, can enchant errors, got his balls cut off recently (almost useless stealth, but he was permastunning and ganking everyone before, so serves him righ). Most scouts are ranged, havent seen many melee, maybe in future.
playstyle: rogue/hunter with stealth, nof said

mage: ranged caster can get 3 types of element "stacks" which can be spent to use special abilities (creating combos n stuff), they also give random buffs/debuffs. Got blink and invis, aka vanilla mage. Not DnD one TT
playstyle: vanilla glass cannon with good damage, aoe, and some survival skills.

priest: more like a zealot, not the fluffy WAR zealot, but one in plate armor and 2h staff (or SnB). His "zeal" reduces cast time of most of his spells, both damaging and healing, his melee increases his zeal (as one of healing spells do)
playstyle: RAGING HEALBOT, can be a ranged caster dd as well, not as good as mage, but the hell, they got plate armor and heal.

shaman: mana based pet support caster, can cast lighting spells n stuff, has pet abilities and support abilities (NICE group HoT, or make enemy attacks slower or negate healing)
playstyle: support dude with pet, I dont really like him.

necromancer: healer with DoTs and pet, can summon skeleton/banshee (based on race, Zem summon toasters as skeletons ]xD ), DoTs are pretty wicked, and do some badass debuffs, heal is based on blood which you steal from your enemies, heal are trickier than priests, but he cant smash his enemy with a good 2handed staff hit on the head. Saying that, its a popular choice in russian OBT (might seem that 60% of server are Zem necroNs)
playstyle: tiny mastermind, with dots, heals, pet and some cc.

paladin (my friend plays one): has barriers which can delay damage, some skills which reduce it, making it resistant to high dmg nukes n crits, can go bash n slash or holy aoe/dot build (might as well focus on tanking or healing, AO is all about hybrids, so you cant really focus), has some heal, not very good heal, but being energy based class, its quite nice, though it requires some conjurable items to use (non-combat 10 sec conjure, there's one skill which can restore them in combat, but slowly). Diing after killing you enemy is OK for paladin.
playstyle: hit 1st, then hit again! you got barriers, so you may focus more on dd than tanking (barriers help with it). But it never hurts to throw a heal or two (they heal with least health or the whole party) and watch your barriers!

mystic (aka mindcrafter) (I play one): mana based, has lots of CC spells, mind contact, which allows some use of some nasty abilities, and some nice debuffs. If other classes are more like DD/heal/supports, mystic is all about annoying and making your enemy feel useless. He lots of different abilities (self heal, 3 sec shield, aoepb, illusion, etc) but all of them are quite weak, but in some situation are lifesavers. I love mystic, being the single most annoying class in the game.
playstyle: crowd controller, even if he cant really control the whole crowd (doesnt have a decent aoe stun), he can make 1 or 2 enemies useless and debuff and spoil the fun for the rest.

p.s. even though mystic has lots of CC spells, every other class have some kind of CC, ranging from blind and aoe knockdown (priest) to fear and (mass)stun/knockdown (warrior)
p.p.s. AO is all about hybrids.

A great and informative post, Vesper. I have but a couple of things to add:

1. The mechanics of Mages mirrors that of DKs from WoW. Where DK uses rune combos to charge a generic power source (RP) for some advanced abilities, Mage in Allods uses a generic power source (mana) to charge different elemental powers which allow access to some advanced spells.

If game balance will ever be polished enough, playing a high-level Mage properly will require much practice, especially in PvP.

2. Mystic is renamed Psionicist in the US closed beta.

how many skills does each class have?

one of my favourite games is guild wars - each class had like 100 skills and +75 skills from secondary class.

now i started playing AO and i count... 16 skills on my scout. woah. is that really all?

Originally posted by VowOfSilence

how many skills does each class have?

one of my favourite games is guild wars - each class had like 100 skills and +75 skills from secondary class.

now i started playing AO and i count... 16 skills on my scout. woah. is that really all?

From what i've seen [judging by the talent trees... unless there are hidden abilities or ones  you can get via quests etc] there are around 16 for each class.

Sorry to disappoint.  :(

Originally posted by Edarias

Originally posted by VowOfSilence

how many skills does each class have?

one of my favourite games is guild wars - each class had like 100 skills and +75 skills from secondary class.

now i started playing AO and i count... 16 skills on my scout. woah. is that really all?

 

From what i've seen [judging by the talent trees... unless there are hidden abilities or ones  you can get via quests etc] there are around 16 for each class.

 

Sorry to disappoint.  :(

16 is just for the base class skills.  At level 10 you get access to 2 additional skill trees for each class.  Plus there are additional skills you can get within the game.  I'm not sure what the exact total is for each class but it's definitely more than 16.

Originally posted by Dameonk

Originally posted by Edarias

Originally posted by VowOfSilence

how many skills does each class have?

one of my favourite games is guild wars - each class had like 100 skills and +75 skills from secondary class.

now i started playing AO and i count... 16 skills on my scout. woah. is that really all?

 

From what i've seen [judging by the talent trees... unless there are hidden abilities or ones  you can get via quests etc] there are around 16 for each class.

 

Sorry to disappoint.  :(

 

16 is just for the base class skills.  At level 10 you get access to 2 additional skill trees for each class.  Plus there are additional skills you can get within the game.  I'm not sure what the exact total is for each class but it's definitely more than 16.

Oh, thanks for the correction. I'm level 8 atm, so that explains that :P

That makes me a whole lot more interested in the game now, too, haha.