Combat System Evolution, from Click and Wait to Dynamic Interaction (Part 2 of 2)
Aion brings two interesting controls into its Combat System. The first is the Combo System, which is explained by AionInsider staff, Warp in “Mechanics: Combo System”. The other is a ‘Movement’ based system that is very unique to Aion.
Beyond trying to out-combo foes in Aion, you will also be required to out-maneuver them as well. The concept is simple, but mastering and applying the strategies will give you the edge over opponents.
The system is straight forward, depending on the direction you move, bonuses are applied to your stats.
They are as follows:
Moving Forward: Increases Attack Power, Lowers Defence, Lowers ‘Magic’ Resist
When your character moves forward, her attack power is increased and defences are decreased. In PvE I found this bonus to be not as useful compared to other possible movement bonuses. The reason being is most mobs will sit still at melee range, and if you constantly move forward you will keep going ‘through’ the mob and have to about face the mob over and over. Attempting to fight like that just made me dizzy with all the camera movements. Not to mention that mobs have godly rotation speed. So before you can even turn 180 degrees to face the mob again after rushing through; chances are that you’re going to get smacked hard upside the head and suffer extra damage due to lowering your defence caused by the forward movement stat modifiers.
Where I found this stat modifier to be useful is when you are chasing down a foe whacking them from behind. At this point, your damage is increased and his defence is lowered. This movement found more use in PvP then PvE from my experience. As a range damage dealer such as a caster, you may wonder how you can benefit from this movement. Remember that moving forward lowers elemental resistance, so use that to your advantage by targeting moving foes compared to stationary foes when able.
Moving Backward: Decrease Attack Power, Increase Parry and Shield Block
When your character moves backwards, her attack power is lowered but in exchange, parry and shield block stats are increased. This is the main movement that should be used by tanks. A smart player knows that to be an effective tank she must mitigate as much damage as possible to sustain the healer’s mana as long as possible. Thus this movement should be regularly practiced if you want to be a pro tank and loved by healers. Even casters should sometimes consider moving backwards in order to ‘get away’ depending on the situation. It may buy you that precious extra few seconds for your healer to get to you; versus dropping in two seconds flat because you decided to run (move forward) reducing your defence and taking additional damage.
Strafing: Increases Dodge, Reduces Attack Power
Strafing is the most popular movement type that is used by rogue like classes. In PvE it helps mitigate damage, thus preventing down time. The amount of damage the rogue class deal in Aion, makes the reduction of attack power negligible. As a range damage dealer, it is unlikely that this stat modifier will be of much use to you.
Flight Form: Drops your defence by 50% almost, Benefits vary from class to class
For now, I will only mention that Flight Form greatly reduces defence. Look forward to a future article that will explain flight form in detail including movement benefits!
Aion really pushes the player to be constantly engaged and aware; the Lineage 2 days of ‘Click and Wait’ doesn’t apply to this game. The complex yet intuitive, unique combat system this game offers are simple enough for everybody to pick up, but will reward those who master them.
- SkyRi
Bonus:
Here is a movement strategy I like to employ with party members!
Strategy: Have your tank move slowly backwards, forcing the mob to move forward and take additional damage from the DPSers of your party!
PS: I’ll make a compilation available of all the movement strategies I can gather for a future post! Please feel free to share any strategies you may figure from reading this blog on the comments board so I can compile it all for convenience!
You may also like:
- Combat System Evolution, from Click and Wait to Dynamic Interaction (Part 1 of 2)
- Mechanics: Combo System
[...] Check out Part 2 of this post [...]
[...] linked nature of skills, to include branching. Also, SkyRi at Aion Insider wrote an informative article concerning the buffs / debuffs players receive from directional movement while in [...]
I’ve noticed myself that if a tank will keep moving backwards together with a boss, he’ll take less damage, but take more from the boss moving forward with will more or less end in +/- 0 if it’s the same amount.
But the advantage will be that the dps will move forward increasing their damage and the boss will have his/her defense lowered for moving foward also.
Will this strategy end up in that every boss kill will look weird with the tank moving backwards in circles the whole fight? Effective, but not a pretty sight.