Design Notes

October 24, 2013

Oracle Class Skills Breakdown

YOU LIKE US! YOU REALLY LIKE US!

We promised you a special class if AQWorlds reached 1 million likes on Facebook, and it's finally happened! After much thought and extensive testing, we are ready to unleash our gift to you upon our servers. Are you ready for it?

I see all - everything you post on your wall.

Our way of thanking you for showing us so much love, Oracle class will be available to ALL players for 0ACs - so you can even store it in your bank without having to worry about space. You'll be able to get it tonight from the Oracle Class shop in Battleon.

Ready to see what this thing can do?

Oracle Skills Breakdown

As an Oracle, you're a strong (and clairvoyant!) healer who can gaze into the past, present and future of all of your friends. You're excellent at maintaining the health and status of your friends with your supportive wall posts skills. And of course, you can notify your friends of your enemy's strengths and weaknesses, because you've read everyone's timelines.

Oracles regain mana from all hits landed in combat, more if it's a critical strike. The amount of mana regained is based on the amount of damage done relative to their own HP total. The stats you'll want to favor as an Oracle are Intellect, Endurance and Wisdom.

AUTO ATTACK

2 second cooldown

A basic attack, taught to all adventurers.

FORESIGHT

5 mana, 8 second cooldown. Magical. Requires rank 1.

Your next auto-attack will be a critical strike. Has a chance to apply Prophet's Vision, increasing Intellect and critical strike damage by 30% for 15 seconds.

Your main damage ability. I feel like I should point out that Prophet's Vision lasts for longer than the cooldown, so if you see this pop up, you can hit Foresight again for an extra strong crit.

GROUP DIVINATION

30 mana, 8 second cooldown. Magical. Requires rank 2.

Heals a friend and up to 3 others by placing a random judgment on each based upon their relationship with the Divine.
Tags Allies with one of the following effects:

• Close Friends: Increases Strength & Intellect by 20% for 20 seconds.
• Befriended: Strong heal over time for 15 seconds.
• Divine Acquaintances: Moderate heal over time for 15 seconds.
• It's Complicated: Reduces damage taken and Luck by 10% for 10 seconds.
• Unfriended: Increases mana costs by 10% and reduces Endurance by 10% for 10 seconds.

Of course "The Divine" is capricious, making the effect you receive completely random. Better hope you don't get Unfriended.

FORETELL

20 mana, 14 second cooldown. Magical. Requires rank 3.

Share photographic imagery with a friend of your opponent's next movement. Applies Shared Link, increasing your or your ally's chance to dodge and critically strike significantly for a short duration.

If Prophet's Vision is up, and you're the one who gets the buff, this can be especially cool.

HIDDEN FROM ENEMIES

Passive. Requires rank 4.

Wisdom is increased by 20%.

AVILABLE TO ALLIES

Passive. Requires rank 4.

All healing is ncreased by 15%.

EDITED TIMELINE

19 mana, 12 second cooldown. Magical. Requires rank 5.

Advanced precognition allows you to read your opponent's timeline and notify allies of his weaknesses. You will either block most of your opponent's Attack Power, or ignore most of your opponent's Spell Power for a short duration.

Note that this is also a random effect. You have an equal chance of getting either one regardless of what monster you are fighting.

TWIST OF FATE

Passive. Requires Rank 10.

On rare occasions, the Oracle and his entire group are granted Divine Recovery, fully healing them and granting temporary invisibility.

As you have probably noticed, this class has a lot of random effects. But they should all be pretty useful no matter what you get (except for Unfriended, hehe), so your ability to be effective doesn't have to depend on getting the right die rolls.

October 17, 2013

Dragon Shinobi Class Skills Breakdown

READY FOR YOUR REWARD?

You've battled Brutalcorn, fought off con rot at BattleCon, and saved the convention guests and Artix Entertainment staff from certain doom at the hands of marauding undead ravers! Now, Artix needs your help again! Find him in the Underground Lab to unlock AQWorlds' 5th Anniversary class, which is... (drumroll, please)

What's better than ninjas? Dragon ninjas.

Dragon Shinobi! During our 5th Birthday event, you'll be able to earn this class by helping Artix save BattleCon (and the Underground Lab!) from a monster invsion. After the event ends, you'll still be able to buy it from Ragnar in Battleon. The class will be in game until our 6th birthday, at which point it will go rare.

To earn Dragon Shinobi, find Artix at the underground lab. Complete quests for him to earn Dragon Shinobi tokens, and then merge the tokens into class set items at his Dragon Shinobi merge shop. Just like last year, you'll have a month to earn the tokens you need. After that time, the only way to get these items will be to buy them. You should be able to earn enough tokens pretty easily though, since the quests can be repeated as often as you want. Plus there's an extra quest for Legends, so if you have a membership it will go even faster.

Anyway, on to the class itself...

Dragon Shinobi Skills Breakdown

Ninjas are hailed for their dexterity. Dragons are praised for their strength. And when the Ninja trains in the way of the Dragon, they shall become the Dragon Shinobi, master of brutal warfare! Dragon Shinobi have mastered the most effective ways of disabling their opponents while enduring their strikes.

Dragon Shinobi was designed as the evolved version of last year's Chunin class. Unlike Chunin, which was a brute force, multi-target sort of ninja, Dragon Shinobi focuses all of its damage onto a single target. Its damage is based on stackable DoTs, so it starts out slow and then ramps up the damage as the fight continues. And for a little something extra: you'll regen mana whenever you hit an enemy, and you'll regen both mana and HP whenever you dodge an attack.

Here's what I caught our playtesters saying about Dragon Shinobi:

"It's all about strategy with this class."
"It's a pretty powerful and tactical class."
"I soloed Desoloth with it, the one from the war... [though it] required patience."

Excited yet? Well, then you must be ready for a detailed skills breakdown!

AUTO ATTACK

2 second cooldown

A basic attack, taught to all adventurers.

SHADOW KUNAI

10 mana, 3 second cooldown. Requires rank 1.

Throw a deadly shadow poison tipped shuriken at your target. Shadow Shuriken will continually damage your opponent from afar. Each throw not only increases the shadow poison's damage but also has a small chance to apply Spinning Dragon to reduce your target's next hit to 0 damage.

Single-target DoT. Since the damage effect stacks, go ahead and use this skill whenever the cooldown comes up. The chance for Spinning Dragon is even more of a reason to use this skill as often as possible.

CHI HEAL

90 mana, 2 second cooldown. Requires rank 2.

Focus all your chi into restoring your life force.

Since this uses almost all of your mana, you'll have to be strategic with this ability despite its short cooldown. However, it is a FULL heal.

SHADOW SOUL

15 mana, 52 second cooldown. Requires rank 3.

Meditate, transferring yourself into the shadow realm to restore your mana. While meditating, you cannot attack for 7 seconds, and all attacks against you will deal greatly reduced damage.

This basically stuns you for 7 seconds (during which time you take a lot less damage), but it heals a large chunk of your mana. A cunning player could use this in conjunction with Chi Heal quite effectively. Note that using this ability will clear out your Shadow Shuriken damage stacks.

MIND OVER MATTER

Passive. Requires rank 4.

Increases Endurance by 18%.

SHADOW MASTER

Passive. Requires rank 4.

Increases haste by 10%, and Damage Over Time effects are 30% stronger.

FLAMING DRAGON

30 mana, 8 second cooldown. Requires rank 5.

Hit your opponent with a flaming strike for moderate damage to burn your target over time. This attack has a chance to apply Spinning Dragon to reduce your target's next hit to 0 damage.

This one isn't stackable, but it is a stronger attack than Shadow Shuriken, so it's a good supplement for it.

SHADOW DRAGON

Passive. Requires Rank 10.

Gives a small chance per attack to gain the power of the Shadow Dragon increasing the power of all Damage Over Time effects by 400% for 20 seconds.

This sounds more OP than it actually is. But it's still a really nice bonus for those longer fights.

So, there you have it! The perfect single-target complement to Chunin's multi-target awesomeness. Strength and dexterity are definitely your friends with this class, so be sure to choose your enhancements wisely . Have fun!

Edit: Shadow Soul no longer heals all of your mana; it brings it up to 65. Breakdown edited accordingly.