Skill and Spells Preview II
This patch releases the second Skill Preview to the Aether Story Alpha. A Skill Preview is an incomplete snapshot of the skills, spells and abilities that the players will have access to. This means that its not the complete vision and key pieces are still missing. But that isn't to say you can't enjoy some new spells and play around with some new mechanics.
What are the new Spells?
Let's dive right into the most exciting thing. The new Spells!
New Elemental Spells:
Ignite - New Level 4 Fire Spell
Set an enemy on fire for 42 seconds. Deals 20% fire damage every 3 seconds.
Water Surge - New Level 4 Water Spell
Blasts all targets directly across from you, dealing 100% water damage split across all targets.
Zap - New Level 1 Lightning Spell
Deals 10%-100% lightning damage to a single target.
Lightning Bolt - New Level 4 Lightning Spell
Deals 70% lightning damage to target directly across. If the hit is critical, it will repeatedly hit another target at half damage after each critical hit; up to a max of 4 hits.
New Class Spells:
Pulse - New Level 2 Sage Spell
Blast an enemy with a wave of astral energy, dealing 50% magic damage.
Dragon Shield - New Level 2 Warden Spell
Reduces all incoming damage by 33% for 8 seconds. Cannot use the Dragon Spirit abilities for 24 seconds.
Boar Charge - New Level 2 Ranger Spell
Boars charge at 1-3 random targets dealing 60% physical damage split across all targets.
What are Skills?
Skills are areas of knowledge that you can train and master. You have a skill in "Fire", a skill in "Cooking", and a skill in "Beastmastery", for example. Generally, as you progress your character you will increase your knowledge within a skill, and new abilities and spells will be unlocked to you.
There are currently three types of Skill categories: Class Skills, Elemental Skills, and Profession Skills.
Class Skills
Class Skills are those that are given to you because of the class you chose when you created your character. Each class has 3 Skill categories planned, and perhaps in the future more Skill categories will be added. Let me break down the class skills currently planned for each class:
- Warden
- Spectral - harnessing spectral energy to create weapons
- Runemaster - drawing runes on the ground to empower you and your allies or mess with enemies
- Dragoon - calling for the Dragon Spirit to provide powerful dragon based attacks and defenses
- Sage
- Astrologist - using the power from the astral plane to destroy your enemies
- Monk - master the power of your mind to strengthen your spirit and unleash physical attacks
- Summoner - call forth the elemental deities to aid you in battle
- Ranger
- Marksman - skilled archer and bow attacks
- Beastmaster - call forth the aid of animal spirits in battle
- Naturalist - work in progress / subject to change
All Class Skills are learned when you create your character and you level them up automatically by leveling your character. New abilities will be learned automatically by leveling up. Some abilities within your Class Skills may require a class quest to unlock at higher levels.
Elemental Skills
Beyond your Class Skills, all classes get access to the same pool of Elemental Skills. Elemental Skills are unique in the fact you must unlock the element before you can use them. There are currently 7 elements planned to be released by Early Access next year. Let's break them down.
- Fire - currently found at the Meadows Ruins through the Main Storyline
- LIghtning - currently found at the Domhan Ridge area (the wasteland/desert-ish map)
- Water - currently found near the Meadows Ruins
- Earth - NYI
- Ice - NYI
- Wind - NYI
- Nature - NYI
Each element provides basic damaging spells of that element, but so much more. As you level each element by using them in battle, they will teach you new spells and abilities. At higher levels the elements start to really shine with unique utilities and abilities that will make each element shine depending on what you need to bring to battle.
Profession Skills
Profession Skills are those that you use generally out of combat to craft and gather resources. These skills including things like Cooking, Botany, Potion Brewing and so forth. As you level these skills you will be able to craft and gather better items and materials. As these skills are fleshed out you will be rewarded for bringing them to maximum level by being able to make very useful items. Most items crafted from professions are tradable and help drive the player economy.
To get started with a Crafting Profession find the level one recipe at various merchants around the game. And to get started with a Gathering Profession, simply keep your eye out for the gathering nodes on your travels.
Change Log:
- New Menu: Skills
- Found in the main menu (hit ESC) you may now browse your Skills, what abilities each Skill teaches you, and your recipes without having to go to a crafting station.
- Elemental Skills:
- All elements now gain experience through use and have their own levels.
- Fire
- New Spell: Ignite - learned at Fire level 4
- Water
- New Spell: Water Surge - learned at Water level 4
- Lightning
- New Spell: Zap - learned at Lightning level 1
- New Spell: Lightning Bolt - learned at Lightning level 4
- Dev Note: Find the new temporary location for the Lightning Shrine in the Domhan Ridge map (the one that is a wasteland/desert-ish).
- Class Skills:
- Sage
- New Spell: Pulse - all Sage's of level 2 or higher will automatically learn this new spell.
- Warden
- New Spell: Dragon Shield - all Warden's of level 2 or higher will automatically learn this new spell.
- Ranger
- New Spell: Boar Charge - all Ranger's of level 2 or higher will automatically learn this new spell.
- Sage
- Hard Mode: Ice King
- You may now fight the Ice King Boss on Hard Mode. To do so you must light the 4 braziers intensely with extra Enchanted Lanterns. Good luck!
- He will drop a new Ice Golem Pet and extra Timeworn Relics.
- Dev Note: He does not count for the Daily Boss Quest. This is a limitation of the system at this current time.
- Misc:
- Sendrik the Sealian has a new voice clip when you talk to him. Be sure to hear the first NPC in the game with voice acting. (Special thanks to Sir Seal the Slippery, our Community Manager for providing the voice acting)
- Rebecca the Snowman has her original dialog from last year.
- Defeating bosses will now show the completion time in the chat, and tell you the rank you placed in the leaderboard for that boss.
- Bug Fixes:
- The sell gold cost of crafted Blacksmithing gear has been updated so you should always make a profit for crafting the item instead of selling the materials directly.
- Making many Blacksmithing gear at one time no longer stacks the items.
- Corrosive Vial now works and doesn't break the enemy it is used on.
Thank you everyone for your continued and ongoing support. I am humbly blessed to have each and everyone of you. Seriously from the bottom of my heart, thank you for believing in me and supporting Aether Story! I hope you all have an amazing holidays and New Year! See you in game!
What are you waiting for? Download the game and check out the game's latest Alpha patch now!
You may download the early Alpha access easily through itch.io:
We are really enthusiastic to have you play our game! Being a small indie game
dev company, we depend on your support to keep us going.
Please consider making a small donation to help us fund the continuous
development of Aether Story! It will really help us out.
If you already have Alpha Access, head on over to the Game Downloads page and download the new Launcher Setup Installer!
And don't forget to join us in Discord.gg/phanxgames to share your suggestions, find other players to play with, and hang out.
Comments
Sendrik says
Now this log gets a seal of approval! Afterall,what would be a seal without its water spells...
shieldgenerator7 says
wow this patch looks so cool! cant wait to use the lightning strike ability
ThunderAxel says
10% to 100% ... We can now gamble in game LOL