Atlantis DLC Enhanced Abilities: do you think they're useful?

[leo.nevar]

I've enjoyed the latest DLC in general. The new environments have been interesting to explore, plenty of AP to earn and lots to do.

I like the concept of the enhanced abilities but my gripe is that none of them fit my play style and I am wondering what others think? I play a hack and slash style with a sword, which I am guessing is fairly common.

1. Ares Madness: Replaces Battlecry of Ares ability and replaces your weapon with Spear of Leonidas. I prefer to fight with a sword; I don't like the mechanics of fighting with a spear.
   
2. Might of Artemis: modifies Rain of Destruction. I don't use hunter abilities.
   
3. Kronos Time Warp: This enhancement to Slow Time shortens the base window of slowed time from 10 seconds to five, but you can extend it by 2.5 seconds by successfully landing headshots. I don't use the bow.
   
4. Ares Bull Charge: summons a phantom bull. I typically only use this ability during conquest battles in order to get across the battlefield quickly to reach lieutenants. Since this enhancement launches a phantom bull instead, it is useless for this purpose.
   
5. Artemis' Trickery: basically a land mine ability. I prefer to take the fight to the enemy rather than setting some traps. I also rarely use the bow.
   
6. Kronos Time Shift: launches you into the air while simultaneously freezing time for three seconds and stunning nearby enemies (replaces Vanish). This is a neat mechanic but I've never used Vanish because, again, I prefer to take the fight to the enemy.
   
7. Ares' Last Breath: instead of instantly healing you, this gives you 10 seconds of invulnerability, automatically parries, and returns 5% of damage as health (replaces Second Wind). This is perhaps the one I would get the most use out of but there is one flaw. I have a '100% CRIT chance at Full Health' loadout so if I get hit, I prefer to get the instant health boost out of Second Wind so that I can get back to full health and realize my full damage potential.

Has anyone found the ability enhancements useful?

[Mujokan]

My main character is assassin with a little bit of warrior and hunter. There was not much for assassins in the new abilities and engravings. (My NG+ poison hunter beastmaster would love it all though.)

I am playing around with the trap arrows one because it adds a gameplay element. I'm also trialing the healing one.

[Tiudyr645🧉]

Ares madness is really useful for my assassin build. I can even deal millions of damage just by activating the ability, it's so op. Artemis' trickery is also useful to make traps for enemies, but I barely used it tbh. And Ares last breath didn't even tried it since I finished the DLC without many issues, maybe I'll try it in the wild, but it seems helpful for me. I hope we get at least 1 more assassin enhanced ability in episode 3

[Sentient_Toaster]

I use Ares Madness for instantly nuking the enemy mercenary in conquest battles -- it seems to do an unblockable, massive damage attack right in front of you when you trigger it -- and going on a brief rampage afterwards.

Artemis Trickery lets me hit multiple targets with a single special arrow, whereas using multitarget uses more than one. I find it interesting for situations like, say, there's a national leader whom I'm going after w/o a bounty, and whom Ikaros tells me would be a legendary lieutenant -- in that case, I can use a single paralyzing arrow for an AoE knockout. It also has potential for around-corner shots to hit enemies w/o direct LOS, and whom aren't lining up perfectly for Ghost Arrow instead.

[Panzerlied]

I used Ares Madness for a while since I play Warrior and use a spear. It was pretty cool but it's pretty much useless if you don't play a crit/assassin type of playstyle. I switched back to Ring of Chaos since it feels more useful to me. As far as the other abilities go, I only tried Ares Bull Rush and Ares' Last Breath, both of which I respec'd out of since I didn't like them very much. I don't plan on trying the other abilities since I don't like the Assassin or Hunter playstyles.

[Grubbs008]

Time shift with ground smash is dirty as hell. You can even use your super charged bow special then smash down after using it.

[Tspoon]

If you combo Ares Madness with some of the others abilities that slow time - you can end up with almost 20 seconds (iirc) in Ares Madness - which is pretty epic!

[Zolushka]

They're all 'meh' for me, but the only one I like less than it's original is the Artemis arrow one. I hate that you can't place the arrows like before because using archery in melee range is just fkn awkward and the upgraded version is not helpful at all for me anymore.

[CombedPumpkin]

they're cool and a welcome change to mix things up a bit

[Sentient_Toaster]

Originally posted by Tspoon:

If you combo Ares Madness with some of the others abilities that slow time - you can end up with almost 20 seconds (iirc) in Ares Madness - which is pretty epic!

The "First Civilization" armor set is basically designed for popping AM @ low health, with +assassin damage and +crit chance/damage at low health, and adding 10 seconds to the duration.

[👽☣smokeygoesmental☣👽]

none they are all bad. most of them are worse then the normal one's this aint a upgrade

[M4tt]

OP clearly didnt even try to use any of these abilties, he literally just read the description and then went "they're useless because none of them is about running in a straight line to the enemy".
Clearly not qualified to rate any of these augmented abilties.

[leo.nevar]

Originally posted by M4tt:

OP clearly didnt even try to use any of these abilties, he literally just read the description and then went "they're useless because none of them is about running in a straight line to the enemy".
WClearly not qualified to rate any of these augmented abilties.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the most valuable contribution to the discussion. You got me Matty!

[<blank>]

nope none of them suits my play style, the only one that i barely touch is "Ares Bull Charge"
that is also only because it has knock back damage.

IMO having them toggle it's better than having to re-arrange the skill points every time i need to remap my points.

[Aries]

Is it just me or I can't use kronos time shift in conquest battle?

[😎Astran😾]

I've tried the abilities and they are useless.

Atlantis "crafted" weapons are absolutely great however.