Six classes, twelve ways to play them, and the gear and world they are played in.
The trailer, recorded in the game.
Classes
Six classes, each splitting into two specialisations — 2 tanks,
2 healers and 8 damage dealers between them. You pick
both when you make a character; the class decides what you can wear and wield, and the
specialisation decides what you actually do in a fight.
Strength, heavy armour and the shortest route to the enemy. Its two specs split on what happens once you arrive — unbroken aggression, or a shield that makes you the one worth hitting.
BerserkerDamage
Rage · Strength · Melee
Rage builds from every blow you land, the faster the better. Bleeds stack up as you swing, and Rupture tears them all open at once.
StalwartTank
Reinforcement · Strength · Melee
Blocking is the engine: every block banks Reinforcement, opens a Counterstrike, and makes the next Shield Slam hit harder.
Agility and a bow, fighting at the range others have to close. One spec sharpens the shot itself; the other borrows from the ancestors and looses arrows that strike as magic rather than muscle.
MarksmanDamage
Focus · Agility · Ranged
Everything builds to Aimed Shot. Quick Shots and Rapid Fire bring the next one sooner, and a Marked Shot looses it instantly, cooldown or not.
SpiritbowDamage
Spirit · Agility · Ranged
Climbs a four-rung ladder at a steepening price, each rung sharpening every arrow — and calls the ancestors down for every rung it holds.
Intellect, a staff and no armour worth the name. One spec juggles three elements for the damage that comes of never repeating itself; the other builds a single arcane ramp and spends it all at once.
ElementalistDamage
Flux · Intellect · Melee
Fire, frost and lightning, where the order matters more than the element — repeating one wastes Resonance. Six Flux buys a Conflux.
ArcanistDamage
Mana · Intellect · Melee
Builds Manaweave with bolts, rides it with Blast and Barrage, then spends it on the Orb or turns it into Mana. Spending hurries cooldowns.
Holy power brought to melee, and the only class whose specs are built on different attributes — an Intellect healer that fights at swinging range, and a Strength tank that carries the party in its auras.
HolyHealer
Mana · Intellect · Melee
The only healer, and a melee one: Holy Bolt builds Holy Power at swinging range, and every heal leaves a shield behind it.
ProtectorTank
Valor · Strength · Melee
A tank that carries the party in one of three auras, pulsing them with Valor as the fight asks for defence, retribution or healing.
Agility, knives and no intention of being hit. One spec pairs a sword with an off-hand knife and lets the knife do the killing; the other coats both blades in poison and waits.
MercenaryDamage
Momentum · Agility · Melee
Two hands with different jobs: the sword provokes off-hand knife strikes, and those strikes build the Momentum its finishers spend whole.
AssassinDamage
Venom · Agility · Melee
Poison is the whole engine — Venom comes from its ticks and your blades, and Envenom turns the whole bar into one more poison.
Intellect and a willingness to let things rot. One spec layers curses and spreads them across a pack; the other turns every point of damage it deals into healing for whoever it has bonded.
CorruptorDamage
Corruption · Intellect · Melee
Layers two curses, spreads them across a pack, and feeds them Corruption through Empower to make every tick hit harder.
LifedrainerHealer
Essence · Intellect · Melee
Bonds allies and then heals them by attacking: every point of damage reaches whoever is marked, and Essence pays for the drains.
Every specialisation fights on its own bar — Rage, Reinforcement, Focus, Spirit, Flux, Mana, Valor, Momentum, Venom, Corruption, Essence — and each
fills and empties in its own way.
Skills as you level
New skills arrive as you level, all the way to the cap. Most specialisations also get a long party buff that sits on a bar of its own.
A talent tree
One point a level, 29 by the cap, spent in a tree whose deeper rows open as
the rows above fill. A few passives are simply handed over at a level, no point needed.
Mastery and Attunement
Mastery is a specialisation’s signature — harder-biting bleeds, a shield that blocks more often, a heal that leaves a barrier behind. Attunement is what it gets out of the resource it spends.
Changing your mind
Master Adon in Birchvale will change your specialisation for a fee. The talents reset with it; your level and your gear stay yours.
Stats
A piece of gear carries a main stat and a handful of secondaries. Which main stat matters
is your specialisation’s: Strength, Agility or Intellect.
Strength · Agility
Fill Attack Power, which scales every weapon strike a physical specialisation makes.
Intellect
Fills Spell Power, which scales a caster’s spells and every heal.
Vitality
More health.
Critical Strike
A chance for a hit — or a damage-over-time tick — to land for 185%.
Haste
Shorter casts, swings, global cooldown and damage-over-time ticks: each point takes the same share off the time.
Mastery
Each specialisation’s own signature bonus, and different for every one of them.
Versatility
A little more damage dealt and a little less taken, whatever you are doing.
Attunement
More out of your resource: faster to build, cheaper to spend, or more damage, healing or protection from what it pays for — the specialisation decides which.
Armour · Magic Defence
Cut physical and magical damage taken.
Items
934 pieces of equipment across helmets, chests, legs, gloves, belts, boots, rings,
necklaces, trinkets, weapons and off-hands, in five rarities.
Common52 pieces
Uncommon216 pieces
Rare371 pieces
Epic212 pieces
Legendary83 pieces
Rolled when it drops
Most gear rolls its numbers inside a range when it drops, so two copies of one sword are rarely the same item. The tooltip shows the roll.
The main stat follows you
The big number on a piece becomes whichever of Strength, Agility or Intellect the wearer is built on — one mace is a Protector’s Strength and a Holy paladin’s Intellect. The tooltip greys out what does not apply to you.
Two hands
A two-handed weapon fills both hands. A caster weighs a staff against a one-hander and a book; a Mercenary carries a sword or axe with a knife; an Assassin carries two knives.
Enchanting
Old Petra in Birchvale adds one permanent stat to a piece of gear. You are shown a few rolled options and keep the one you want; the price grows with the rarity.
Potions and food
Potions work mid-fight on a cooldown the healing potions share. Food is for between fights — sit down to eat, and moving ends the meal.
Professions
Every character practises all eleven trades; trainers teach their recipes.
Five gather —
mining, botany, skinning, woodcutting and fishing — and the rest make
weapons, armour, potions, meals, jewellery and runes out of what is gathered. Each levels as
you practise it.
Trading, the auction house and the post
Nothing binds to you, so every item in the game can change hands. Trade face to face,
or list a piece with Auctioneer Vella in Birchvale’s market:
buyout only, 2% to post, 8% taken from
a sale, and a lot stands for 48 hours. The gold from a sale, a piece you bought and a
lot that came back all arrive by post, at any city’s post box — where you can also write to
other players, with gold and items in the letter.
The world
One world
Everything is a single continuous map. You start in Birchvale and walk out from there — no loading screens between areas, and everyone else is in the same place.
Beneath it
Interiors, undercrofts and crypts lie on a layer under the surface, reached through their doors.
Locked ways
Levers open gates, and some gates want more than one pulled. A ward — a shimmering veil — lets through only those who have earned it: a quest done, a level reached, a key carried.
Waypoint stones
A stone takes you to any other stone you have already walked to, for a little gold and a few seconds standing still — never in the middle of a fight.
Instanced dungeons
A dungeon is entered from a door in the world, and every party that goes in gets an instance of its own — small ones for up to 5 players, large ones for up to 10. Each boss in it can be beaten once until the dungeon resets.
Bosses
A boss sleeps until it is attacked. Once the fight starts its arena seals, and the doors stay shut until one side has won. It never gives up the chase.
Quests
The people of the world have work for you. Some jobs end with a choice of reward, each piece suited to a different build — and the choice is yours to make at the turn-in.