Trying to understand the combat mechanics

[FroBodine]

I have five hours in this game so far, not much I know, but it's a good start. I made it to level 2, and I think it's about time I try to fully understand the combat mechanics.

So far, I have pretty much just been clicking on skills when they are available, with some minor semblance of forethought, e.g. shield my tank, heal when needed, etc.

But, I don't really understand what the heck is going on during combat.

1. I don't understand global cooldown, as opposed to each skill's own cooldown.

2. It seems like the cooldown timers activate and start counting down without me clicking on the skill. Why is this?

3. Sometimes I have the combat paused, and I click on a skill, thinking it will add a 1, but it doesn't. The next skill I click on for the same dude gets a 1, followed by a 2, 3. Am I just imagining this? If not, why is this happening?

4. What is a good general tactic to using skills? I realize that's a very broad question, but again, I find myself just clicking on skills as they become available, not really knowing what the best order is.

Thanks! I know I have more questions, but that's all I can think of right now. As I play, I'll add more.

Thanks! I love the game, I just want to understand it.

[Samseng Yik]

1) Global cooldown mean, whenever you use any skill, all other skill can only use again after global cooldown. Global cooldown can shorten by increasing HASTE.

2) If you activate other skill, all skills will enter global cooldown

3) The number is the sequence, 1 mean it will be activate as soon as ready.
When "1" activated, all other sequence will reduce by 1 (Of course).
You can queue 3 skills. Best example for your early level Protector, is to queue alternately with Rend and Thunderclap.

4)
- The very first general tactic is to understand your enemies/bosses.
Example for level 1 boss, if you beat it by skill spamming, you probably only playing low difficulty.
Tank should interrupt boss "Stunning Light" because it is unavoidable.
Wile party should withdraw 1 step when boss casting "Monumental Swipe" because boss cannot move when casting this.

- Other general tactics are use tank skill smartly to protect all other members.
In monster group encounter, tank should use AOE draw everyone attention while party kill enemy ASAP. In Warrior(Normal) difficulty and above, non-Tank can only sustain max 2 hits from boss if no critical happening.

- It depends on your RPG knowledge, but I will try to assume you are fool now without great RPG knowledge.
Protector "Devastate" lower enemy armor. Of course you don't use "Devastate" on enemy without armor. Depend on your English understanding.
Heal Over Time spell from Druid, of course you don't cast it only when your tank on low health.
You should cast it much earlier because your tank will get attacked a lot. When Healing Over Spell effect on tank, you use other spell to heal tank again.
Killing 1 target ASAP is better. Because 1 less enemy will do the damage ASAP.

- In early level before 5, most enemy has simple attack pattern. Starting from level 5.
SOme enemies will attack multiple toon at once. Some will interrupt toon skill !!!
It is super bad if encounter start but your tank Thunderclap get interrupted when casting.
Leaving your tank no much option to pull 4 monster attention. To avoid this, let enemy interrupt your tank first then just start queueing skill or Thunderclap when enemy moving into the "melee distance"

- Put 2 points in Arcanist tree so you can unlock "Monster LOCK" spell. Doing so will lower your non-Arcanist progression.
It put an enemy into stasis for 20 seconds but get attacked enough it will break out.
General RPG knowledge demand player to Lock 1 enemy when combat begin, then all party focus on kill all other enemies.

[FroBodine]

Thank you very much! Good stuff! I don't have a Druid. I have the Priestess (I think that's the class), that can only heal one at a time. Should I restart and use a Druid, or is the Priestess still a good character?

[Samseng Yik]

Priest is so good.
When I use priest, I rarely heal even in boss fight.
75% of the time I use Shield. Only use heal when Shield is on cooldown.
Or the shield still has good HP, then I use Renew to recover tank lost HP

Priest is tricky but not difficult.
Necromancer is difficult, but no bad.

Never forget all your toon can "respec" by hitting the "Dice" in talent tree.
YOu can make a save file then respec and try.

General Druid play style is to stack bloom to 3 ASAP.
Let the bloom expire to burst heal if you want to.
Or keep the bloom on 3 stack for very high healing over times.
Start the combat by applying bloom immediately.
General non emergency situation queue will be
Bloom -> Regrowth -> Bloom -> (Anything) -> Bloom -> Regrowth

[ManuTOO]

@FroBodine,

2) When an Auto-attack triggers, it'll shown a fast cooldown rotation on all your abilities, but if you click on an ability before the auto-attack hits, then the auto-attack will be replaced by that ability

3) Some abilities bypass queue and thus aren't queued but instant ; check their tooltip to know which ones do that

4) Figuring the best rotation & skills to apply in the right moment is a good part of the fun of the game, but hopefully Samseng Yik will give you some ideas..! :)

In Adventurer difficulty (and below), you don't really have to understand the game to prevail in most fights, so if you don't mind dying a bit often for a while, you might want to raise the difficulty to Soldier. Maybe do so only once you'll have reached the Level 3 or 4, when you'll be familiar with all the starting abilities.
In Soldier, doing something wrong will often lead to big trouble, so you'll know more easily you actually did something wrong... ;-) In Adventurer, you'll just end with lower health at end of combat, and/or a bit longer fight.

Note: if you enjoy to play in Adventurer, it's totally ok with me ; it's just that the real taste of the combat intricacy starts on Soldier..! :-)

[FroBodine]

Thank you, ManuTOO. What is an auto-attack, please? What causes an attack to happen automatically, how does it trigger? What kind of attacks can be auto?

I think I am already playing in Soldier mode. I never like to breeze through games, so I almost always pick the standard setting difficulty in games. I'm never a pro gamer, but I do enjoy playing games at the difficulty the developer intended.

[ManuTOO]

@FroBodine,
auto-attack = basic attack with your weapons, when your party members aren't using any special ability.
Usually, you'll have 1 or 2 during the global cooldown, between 2 abilities.

[Samseng Yik]

please ensure you always select all 4 toons and lock it.
always right click 1 target enemy before you start doing thing.
this ensure your party targeting same enemy and never idle.

your first hardest fight will be golden knight elite and 2 minstrels.

defeating this without lower difficulty mean you should able to do fine for 30% of game

[ChopShop]

I don't really understand combat either. Only one character is attacking.Do I have to click on each box next to each portrait? If so, why? Can I just line them up or something. It's really strange to have to move my mouse around and click on those tiny little boxes as they cool down. Is their an auto rotation where after a character attacks it goes to the next character automatically.

[Samseng Yik]

There is a button above the "directions".
Click that, you will select "whole party". I also suggest you right click this button to "LOCK" it.
So you are selecting your full party all the time. This is the correct gameplay for 95% of the time.
Only very few occasions you will want party members target different enemy.

When "selecting" whole party, any enemy you right click will make full party targetting it.
What good thing is, casting any hostile talent will automatically taget the "current target".

[ManuTOO]

A little addition : What good thing is, casting any hostile talent will automatically target the "current target", if your character doesn't already have a target.

@ChopShop,
you can increase the size of the icons in Options -> Interface.
If you like turn-based games, check auto-pause options in Options -> Game Options -> Helpers, especially "Auto Pause on Global Cooldown Recharged".

[Kordanor]

I will dig up this thread again, as it already touches various topics I was wondering about (also nice to see FroBodine here ^^)
I have played tons of MMORPGs but I found it very confusing that this game uses the same terminology but associates other things with them.

So let me point out some facts, which are either correct or incorrect:

-In theory, a character with 0 haste and spells with 6s of casting time, would never have an auto attack if the spells are queued up.

• This effectively means that the damage of this 6 second spell wought need to be weighted against the auto attack damage (e.g. a Spell with 90dmg in 6 seconds equals 3 auto-attacks
  with 2s weapons, doing 30 dmg each)

-The Global Cooldown is triggered by Abilities and then takes 6 seconds (assuming no haste)
-There is a mini version of GC if an auto-attack happened while no GC was active?
-If a spell takes less than 6s to cast, auto-attacks can happen within the GC timeframe.

• This also means that in comparison to other spells you should factor in the dmg done by auto-attacks in this 6s dimeframe. E.g. You have two spells, the one mentioned from before with 6s and 90dmg, and one with 2s and 40dmg while having a 2s weapon equipped doing 30dmg. This means that the second spell would be better as it does 100 dmg in the 6s timeframe.
  
• Additional question: What if the spell uses 3s cast time, and the weapon has a speed of 2s. Will this cause 2 auto-attacks and expand the GC by 1s? Otherwise odd numbers with an auto attack trigger just before 6s might be quite superior.

Also what does the sword on the character portrait represent? Is this the GC timer? Or the timer for auto attacks?


I think questions regarding these mechanics might now be even more apparent as you are able to reduce the combat speed. Also the dmg meter has a slight delay and there is no combat log which usually helps a lot with such questions.

[ManuTOO]

@Kordanor,
(I'll let you number your questions if you have trouble matching my answers ;-) )

1) Correct

2) Correct

3) When an auto-attack occurs, nothing can happen after the hit occurred and before the cast is over. (see http://steamcommunity.com/app/409450/discussions/0/1474222595312247466/#c1474222595312593828 )

4a) Correct

4b) Correct if the GCD ends after the AA hit ; else the AA cast will be converted to the next queued ability when the GCD ends

5) The rotating sword represents the casting bar : you can mouse over it to see what current ability or auto-attack is cast; the little purple ball represents the actual hit.

6) You can mouse over all damage numbers to see what ability & character produced them ; it's almost as good as a combat log... :-p

[Kordanor]

Alrighty, thanks a lot!
@6 Ah, nice, didn't know that!

[Kordanor]

One follow up question: The mini-CD caused by the auto-attack, how long is it and when exactly does the autoattack start? Felt like its not starting right away.

So is it like (assuming 2s auto attack and 2 x 4s abilities with 2,5s casting time, mini-cd of 0.5s, gc of 6s):
0s - nothing
0.5s-auto attack starts+mini cd
1s- mini cd ends
2,5s - 2nd auto attack starts+mini cd
2.6s Ability 1 gets queued
3.0s -mini CD ends, ability gets executed
5.5s - Ability 1 finishes, GC still running, Auto attack starts
6.0s - Mini cd ends
7.5s - Auto attack starts+mini cd
8s - Mini cd ends
9s - GC ends, Ability 2 gets executed

I start to think that someone should make a combat simulation program ^^
The impact of one auto-attack more or less in a rotation has a bigger impact than a new weapon or the use of the correct skill.
Also got one other question: Is the threat generated by tank skills static, or is it a multiplier of the dmg caused? (not talking about the auto attacks)

[ManuTOO]

It'd be more, for a 2.5s Weapon Speed and thus 2.5s Auto-attack (AA) cast :
0s - AA starts ; cast is mutable to an ability if it's queued now
1s - AA hits ; cast isn't mutable anymore
2.5s - AA cast ends, 2nd AA starts ; cast is mutable to an ability if it's queued now
3.5s - AA hits ; cast isn't mutable anymore
5s - AA cast ends

There's no mini-CD ; it's just the end of the AA casting. Same for Abilities, as long as they didn't finish to cast, the next AA can't start, even if the ability hit already occurred.

And peddroelm made a queuing calculator here =>
http://steamcommunity.com/app/409450/discussions/0/1489992080511646473/ .