Armor

Kaelar Tank-Rüstung Konzeptgrafik von Mat Broome.

Modular Kleriker-Rüstung Konzeptgrafik von Jeff Delierre und Keith Kovach.^[1]

Armor skills and stats

Weapons and Armor are tied to skills in Ashes of Creation Apocalypse.^[9]

Swapping between weapons will allow players to access the different skills on their hotbar.^[9]
Certain armor pieces have utility and defensive skills, such as like Camouflage, Polymorph and Battlefield wall.^[9]
Weapons are tied to one specific skill in early testing, but this may change.^[10]

Weapons will have skills associated with them and they'll will rest on a hot bar and you can swap between the weapons on the hot bar and that'll allow you to access the different skills. Additionally the breastplate, the leggings: Those also have skills associated with them those are more utility and defensive abilities, such as like camouflage, polymorph, battlefield wall; that kind of stuff. Those are on the armor pieces and then they are associated with right now the VC hotkeys for their abilities.^[9] – Steven Sharif

Right now weapons are tied to one specific skill; and you know that's just again because we're so early in alpha 1; but well probably be changing that as we continue to iterate and test.^[9] – Steven Sharif

Stats on gear

Crafters will be able to assign different skills/abilities and stats on armor.^[11]

Not all armor sets will be the cookie cutter kind of set. They will have the influences from the crafter available in it, if it's a crafted set.^[11] – Steven Sharif

Ashes of Creation Apocalypse armor

Ashes of Creation Apocalypse base leather armor set concept art.^[12]

Ashes of Creation Apocalypse armor comes with associated skills/abilities.^[13] There are two types of armor: Upper and lower body.^[14]

Armor grants damage mitigation.^[13]

In Ashes of Creation Apocalypse battle royale armor that has lost its damage mitigation can be recharged/repaired to restore damage mitigation points.^[13]
In Ashes of Creation Apocalypse castle sieges armor can be replenished by an Engineer. There may also be items in the world or objectives that replenish armor for the entire team, such as one of the buffs for taking a control point.^[15]
In Ashes of Creation (the MMORPG) armor does not function as a pool. There will be no armor bar as seen in Ashes of Creation Apocalypse.^[15]

What you're seeing currently in the Battle Royale feature of Apocalypse is you find armor and that gives you an armor pool and then you can regenerate your armor. What we're going to be experiencing in the castle siege form is each class will have a set amount of armor that they join the match with that's already full and a set amount of health that's already full. Upon losing armor you can either have your armor replenished by an Engineer or there there may be ability for you to find items that are in the world or there could be objectives that replenish armor for the entire team, such as one of the buffs for taking a control point.^[15] – Steven Sharif

Ashes of Creation Apocalypse armor skills

Skill	Rank 1	Rank 2	Rank 3
Arcanic Power	Channel raw arcane energies to instantly knock nearby foes back, deal damage, and give yourself some breathing room.^[16] Duration: 1 sec Cooldown: 10 sec	Channel raw arcane energies to instantly knock nearby foes back, deal damage, and give yourself some breathing room.^[17] Duration: 1 sec Cooldown: 9 sec	Channel raw arcane energies to instantly knock nearby foes back, deal damage, and give yourself some breathing room.^[18] Duration: 1 sec Cooldown: 8 sec
Blink	Activate to instantly teleport yourself a short distance forward.^[19] Duration: 1 sec Cooldown: 30 sec	Activate to instantly teleport yourself a short distance forward.^[20] Duration: 1 sec Cooldown: 25 sec	Activate to instantly teleport yourself a short distance forward.^[21] Duration: 1 sec Cooldown: 20 sec
Bulwark	This spell will instantly summon a wall a short distance in front of the caster. Perfect for deploying as a cover!^[22] Duration: 15 Sec. Cooldown: 20 Sec.	This spell will instantly summon a wall a short distance in front of the caster. Perfect for deploying as a cover!^[23] Duration: 17 Sec. Cooldown: 15 Sec.	This spell will instantly summon a wall a short distance in front of the caster. Perfect for deploying as a cover!^[24] Duration: 20 Sec. Cooldown: 10 Sec.
Catfall	Activate to grant yourself exceptional jumping abilities, silent moving, and protection from falling damage for the duration.^[25] Duration: 10 sec Cooldown: 30 sec	Activate to grant yourself exceptional jumping abilities, silent moving, and protection from falling damage for the duration.^[26] Duration: 13 sec Cooldown: 25 sec	Activate to grant yourself exceptional jumping abilities, silent moving, and protection from falling damage for the duration.^[27] Duration: 16 sec Cooldown: 20 sec
Dark Pact	For the duration of this spell, you will be immune to the effects of the corruption storm.^[28] Duration: 10 sec Cooldown: 45 sec	For the duration of this spell, you will be immune to the effects of the corruption storm.^[29] Duration: 11 sec Cooldown: 45 sec	For the duration of this spell, you will be immune to the effects of the corruption storm.^[30] Duration: 12 sec Cooldown: 45 sec
Icy Steps	With this spell you will leave icy trails behind you, which will snare and slow your enemies.^[31] Duration: 10 sec Cooldown: 15 sec	With this spell you will leave icy trails behind you, which will snare and slow your enemies.^[32] Duration: 13 sec Cooldown: 12 sec	With this spell you will leave icy trails behind you, which will snare and slow your enemies.^[33] Duration: 16 sec Cooldown: 10 sec
Invisibility	This spell turns you invisible for the duration, though it will cancel upon attacking, or through the use of any other spells.^[34] Duration: 20 sec Cooldown: 60 sec	This spell turns you invisible for the duration, though it will cancel upon attacking, or through the use of any other spells.^[35] Duration: 25 sec Cooldown: 50 sec	This spell turns you invisible for the duration, though it will cancel upon attacking, or through the use of any other spells.^[36] Duration: 30 sec Cooldown: 40 sec
Polymorph	Transform yourself into a harmless inanimate object, and disappear into the local terrain. Will cancel on movement or attack.^[37] Duration: 30 sec Cooldown: 45 sec	Transform yourself into a harmless inanimate object, and disappear into the local terrain. Will cancel on movement or attack.^[38] Duration: 40 sec Cooldown: 20 sec	Transform yourself into a harmless inanimate object, and disappear into the local terrain. Will cancel on movement or attack.^[39] Duration: 50 sec Cooldown: 15 sec

Ashes of Creation Apocalypse armor appearances

Ashes of Creation Apocalypse item rarities

Ashes of Creation Apocalypse weapons and abilities get better with each tier.^[40]

Blue – uncommon.^[41]
Yellow – rare.^[41]
Red – legendary.^[41]

Ausrüstungsplätze

Alpha-0 gear/equipment slots UI.^[42]

There are 16 gear slots in Ashes of Creation:^[43]

8 Armor slots
5 Jewelry slots
2 Weapons slots
1 Ranged slot

Armor characteristics

Light armor

Lighter armor is more mobile than heavier armor.^[44]

Heavy armor

Heavy armor typically has more HP than lighter armor.^[44]
Heavy armor is geared towards physical damage mitigation.^[45]

Armor passives	Rank 1	Rank 2	Rank 3
Cloth armor (passive)	Increases armor given by cloth armor.^[46]	Further increases armor given by cloth armor.^[46]	Bonus mana for each piece of cloth armor.^[46]
Heavy armor (passive)	Increases armor given by heavy armor.^[47]	Further increases armor given.^[47]	Each piece of armor added gives health percentage bonus to the tank.^[47]
Light armor (passive)	Increases armor given by light armor.^[48]	Further increases armor given by light armor.^[48]	Each piece of light armor increases damage.^[48]
Medium armor (passive)	Increases armor given by medium armor.^[49]	Further increases armor given by medium armor.^[49]	If medium armor worn in all slots gives a balance of health and mana less than the health given.^[49]

Class weapons and armor

Waffen und Rüstungen sind nicht für bestimmte Klassen gesperrt, aber bestimmte Klassen sind mit bestimmten Arten von Waffen oder Rüstungen effizienter.^[50]^[51] Bestimmte Fähigkeiten erfordern, dass bestimmte Gegenstände ausgerüstet sind.^[52]

Weapons are intended to be somewhat agnostic in the sense that you can find a way for a weapon to be utilized by different classes. Not just the rogue is going to be able to use daggers. Because if you restrict equipment through that, it makes the economy more difficult to have sustainability across the market of items.^[53] – Steven Sharif

Ashes of Creation Apocalypse class kits

Classes in Ashes of Creation Apocalypse castle sieges and Ashes of Creation Apocalypse horde mode. Emblem designs by Ryan Richmond.^[54]

Six classes will be present in Ashes of Creation Apocalypse castle sieges and Ashes of Creation Apocalypse horde mode.^[54]

Warrior classes
- Guardian
- Weapon Master

DPS classes
- Archwizard
- Hawkeye

Support classes
- High Priest
- Engineer

These classes relate to the trinity of classes: Tank, DPS and Support.^[54]^[55]

Skills/abilities are not tied specifically to weapons in castle siege mode.^[56]
- It was previously stated that weapon skills are applied to augment a class' base skills.^[57]
Base class skills may be able to be selected from a host of available skills for that class based on a player's progression within that season.^[57]^[58]

We had a little bit of an idea that we're going to explore with regards to each of the classes having a range of skills and abilities that players can customize that skill kit based on their progression within a season, let's say; and that progression can be gained from any of the modes and it would grant you the ability to kind of customize that skill kit for the before the siege mode or the horde mode. But that's something that might come at a later date.^[58] – Steven Sharif

Ashes of Creation Apocalypse classes only apply to Ashes of Creation Apocalypse castle sieges and Ashes of Creation Apocalypse horde mode.^[59]

Rassenspezifische Waffen und Rüstungen

Dünir and Empyrean racially styled armor concept art by Keith Kovach.^[60]

Kaelar and Empyrean racially styled weapon concept art.

Weapons and armor are not race locked, but armor will take on a racial appearance.^[61]^[62]

Erscheinungsbild der Rassen of gear is focused on Armor, not Weapons.^[63]

The customization of equipment per race is really focused on Armor sets not Weapon props. Weapon props will, from a model standpoint, will translate pretty one-to-one across the races.^[63] – Steven Sharif

Let's say for example you have the Eagle set or something, right: The Eagle set has in art, it has a thematic design that's going to include certain attachments to the armor. It's going to include color palette and theme. It's going to have some aspects to it that define it as the Eagle set, right. When a Elf wears the Eagle set or when an Orc wears the Eagle set, you obviously have two different cultures there; and you don't want to stomp out that culture by assigning a de facto 'This is the Eagle set and this is how it looks on everybody.' What we want to have is cultural influences play a role in showing how that set looks.^[63] – Steven Sharif

Erscheinungsbild der Rassen of gear sets is tied to the character model of that race.^[64]

When you say, what if I'm an Orc but want to look like an Elf and I want my Eagle set to be the Elf representation? Well the issue becomes there that you know Orcs have a different organic model. You know, their body is different than that of the Elf. So, from a scope-creep standpoint, it's one thing to add different influences that represent the cultures that are donning the armor; it's another thing to adapt each influence as a matrix that can be worn pretty much by everything. From a scope perspective, that's a very difficult task for the character artists to kind of tackle. So instead what we've done is, in order to facilitate a variety of cultural representation between the races but allow for the sharing of assets like different armor sets, we give different representations of those armor sets to each race.^[64] – Steven Sharif

Appearance

Ausrüstung will have appearance slots (Transmutation/Transmog/cosmetic slots) that are used to copy the appearance of an item (in some cases).^[65]^[66]

Armor will take on a racial appearance.^[63]

Cosmetic slots can be toggled on or off.^[67]
- This may happen automatically during battles to increase performance.^[68]

Gear is intended to be realistic in appearance.^[69]^[59]
- There will not be "oversized" weapons.^[70]
- Armor will not be overly sexual in appearance.^[59]

Players can change gear colors using dyes.^[71]^[72]

Helmet display can be toggled on and off.^[2]

Particle effects are used to denote the importance and rarity of some weapons.^[73]

Weapons are able to be sheathed.^[74]

I'm more of the mind that it wouldn't really serve a purpose to have bikini plate armor, just in like reality, if you're going to have armor, it should be protective. I think from a fashion statement is enjoyable for some people, but it's a kind of an immersive issue.^[69] – Steven Sharif

We're going for kind of a more realistic look; not necessarily realistic setting, but we want our characters to have weight and kind of feel like they're there.^[69] – Jeffrey Bard

Attachments

Attachments are able to be unlocked as flair pieces to armor to create a customizable look.^[75]

There will be hundreds of attachments available ranging from a small clasp to the front plate of a breast plate.^[75]

Dyeable items

Farbstoffe only affect tagged portions of armor or cosmetic items.^[76]

The dyeability of costumes depends on the specific costume.

Outside of wanting to keep maybe some identity from a lore perspective; for example if you have like a white lion's suit of armor, you may not want that white lion suit of armor to be black or blue. So, it's possible. It depends on the costume itself.^[76] – Steven Sharif

Backer only armor skin

All Kickstarter backers receive a unique armor skin set.^[77]

Modular armor

Kaelar base level Ashes of Creation Apocalypse robe set.

You can kind of start to see like some of the components that we put together that we can mix and match and kind of make new armors from. This is kind of like the base chassis for all of that.^[78] – Jeffrey Bard

This is what we call our t-shirt and pants. So this gives you a perfect example of just how the most basic you'll ever look in alpha. So even our most basic look, we're really trying to bring it and put a lot of detail in it.^[79] – Mat Broome

Empyrean level 20 (tier 3) plate armor.^[80]

Kaelar level 20 (tier 3) plate armor.^[81]

Your base look for the character can be pretty boring, but what Steven gave us a challenge with from day one was to make sure even the base look, the t-shirt and pants, looked amazing... This is your zero character, if you will... Then you can go in and customize everything from the shoulder pads to the elbow pads, the belt that goes around them; do you want duel belts, you want to harness the clothes in the front. So every piece you see on here you can actually customize that at the front end. So what we do is we scale that up from zero, ten and twenty... We scale it up and we customize it; and then I want to really stress that each one of those looks as you progress is different. We're not just repurposing the same armor pieces. We're making unique sets that complement each other as you progress.^[78] – Mat Broome

Ashes of Creation Apocalypse will have three different armor themes: Plate, leather and robe.^[79]

You can actually have three different types of themes: You have plate, you'll have leather and you'll have robe. So for every armor set that we're showing at each one of those tiers, you're actually gonna have nine unique looks to pick from.^[79] – Mat Broome

Kosmetikshop

Ashes of Creation cosmetic store.^[82]

The Kosmetikshop enables players to purchase Cosmetics for use in Ashes of Creation.^[83]

Pets, Mounts, Costumes, Armor, Buildings and Accessories sold in the cosmetic store are skins.^[84]

Skins are cosmetic items that do not grant the user any benefit.^[85] Nothing in the cosmetic store will be pay to win.^[86]

Skins are only be able to be applied to things that have already been earned, crafted or found within Ashes of Creation.^[87]
Different variants of store purchased cosmetic creatures may exist in the wild.^[88]
Flavor text relates to the lore and background of creatures and items in the world of Verra.^[85]
Costumes and mounts may also be accessible in Ashes of Creation Apocalypse.^[85]

We plan to include a shop for micro transactions. The shop will only include cosmetic items. Nothing in our shop will ever be pay to win as we believe this practice greatly hurts the MMORPG genre.^[86]

All cosmetic store items will be non-tradeable.^[89] There will be no gifting mechanism for cosmetic items.^[90]

I don't want cosmetic items that can be purchased from the marketplace to be transferable... because it is in a way a transfer of money for potentially something in-game.^[90] – Steven Sharif

The cosmetic store will offer limited time, limited quantity items to help sustain game development.^[91]

Equitable cosmetics, both from a quantity and quality standpoint, are achievable through in-game means.^[91]

I want to incentivize purchase in the cosmetic shop for sustainability of what expansions we have intended, since we are not a box cost. I want to incentivize purchase by offering limited items: limited time, limited quantity, so you have confidence that when you purchase them, they won't be offered later on in some other way.^[91] – Steven Sharif

Gear sets

Alpha-1 Base leather armor set concept art.^[12]

Gear sets (also known as tier sets) are a part of Ashes of Creation.^[66]

Players gain bonuses depending on the number of pieces of the set they have equipped.
There are passive abilities that can be chosen to become more adept with certain set types.
There may be set bonuses that members of certain communities will obtain based on gear set type.
There are tiers of gear that players can access based on their level.
There will be viable non-set builds.^[92]
Certain set bonuses may trade off core gear stats.^[92]
Erscheinungsbild der Rassen of gear sets is tied to the character model of that race.^[64]

Mana-forged armor

Mana-forged armor sets may be achievable in the Ashes of Creation MMO.^[93]

They also appear to be base variants of Ashes of Creation Apocalypse armor sets.^[94]

Verra will be filled with many sets of armor, each set uniquely carved into the history of the world. Mana-forged sets are distinctly vibrant with luminescent magic, pulsating across the body of its hero. We hope you enjoy them, and look forward to many more glimpses into the armors of Verra, waiting for their champions!^[95] – Margaret Krohn

Regalia of the Iron Lion

The Iron Lion is a fairly new order, one formed out of a desire to control the unknowable. With the rediscovery of the old world, many Kaelar wondered what lay beyond, considering the incredible power the divine gateways represented. To this end, the Iron Lion focuses not only on martial combat, but also on the art of dampening magic. Without such knowledge, establishing a foothold may be all but impossible - rampant magic is an unpredictable, and many times lethal, complication in any sortie. Due to this, the Iron Lion puts forth significant effort in studying and learning about the magics they come across, hoping to minimize the dangers they pose.^[96]

Gear enhancement

Gear enhancements (power stones/runes) can be applied to weapons to add elemental or energy types of damage.^[97]^[98]

We are very likely going to have a rune system and then we'll have the ability to sort of enchant weapons outside of that too... That's not always going to be like a vertical progression... Some of it's going to be giving up something to get something else; so maybe I do less physical damage but more magical damage, that kind of thing.^[98] – Jeffrey Bard

Enchanting

Enchanting services are sold at player stalls.^[99]

There isn't RNG in crafting but there may be a small amount of RNG in enchanting.^[100]
Over-enchanting items may come with a potential risk that the item is destroyed.^[101]

There are two types of enchantments for items: Vertical and horizontal.^[102]

Vertical enchantments are a power progression for a crafted item. More damage or mitigations, added effects or bonuses.^[102]
- Vertical enchantments include risks.
Horizontal enchantments are more situational. For example: I'd like my sword to do force damage instead of holy damage because the monsters I tend to fight are incorporeal.^[102]
- This doesn't make the item more powerful, but instead more applicable to different situations, and less so to others.
- This type of enchanting assumes no risk, just time and effort.

Switching gear

Weapon swapping in Ashes of Creation Apocalypse.^[103]

Weapon swapping in the Ashes of Creation MMORPG will be subject to a cooldown period following any damage taken or done by the player.^[104]

The cooldown will be in the range of a few seconds.^[104]

For the MMORPG we want there to be some time between damage received or damage done before you can swap your weapon. It's not going to be substantial. It will maybe be a few seconds.^[104] – Steven Sharif

Players cannot switch gear (Armor) while in combat.^[105]

Trading gear

Ashes of Creation concept art.^[106]

There will be player to player trading in Ashes of Creation.^[107]^[108]

Q: Will Ashes of Creation have player-to-player trading? Will there be anything stopping me from gifting a friend that's fresh to the game a bunch of in-game money to help them get on their feet quickly?

A: There won't be anything to stop you from doing that.^[107] – Steven Sharif

Sharing gear with alts

Es gibt keine speziellen Hindernisse für Twinks.^[109] Ausrüstung kann zwischen den Charakteren ausgetauscht werden.^[110]

Legendäre Gegenstände

Discovery of legendary items will unlock further chapters of the Überlieferungen.^[111]

There are absolutely legendary items and they're not items that are attained easily nor are they granted out in a volume. There might even be items that are single items that will exist on the server at any given time.^[112]

A legendary weapon is easily distinguished by its visual appearance.^[113]

It will be a very ornate and detailed weapon, more so than any other weapon or piece of equipment in the game. It will also include some awesome looking effects that won't too gaudy, you know they won't be too bright and shiny so that it doesn't look good, but they will be subtle and people will notice it and know wow that guy has this weapon.^[113] – Steven Sharif

Obtaining a legendary item will not be RNG based. It will entail obtaining construction components from various progression pathways.^[113]

The amount of effort needed and interdependencies across the different types of players – between raiders and PvPers and crafters and even role players and the taverns and businesses: the processors and gatherers – all of those systems will likely have a component that lends toward creating or crafting that legendary item... We want to stay away from the highly RNGd system, and instead take our multiple progression paths that we are offering the players and put the construction components for achieving these legendary items within them so it encourages communities to work together because it's going to be difficult for just one person by themselves to gather everything. Not to say that they couldn't in an economic sense, by buying those components, that's possible. But achieving them from a time investment standpoint we want it to be considerably less RNG focussed.^[113] – Steven Sharif

Legendary items are not intended to be temporary.^[114]

A notable exception to this is Royal mounts.^[115]

The fact there is only one of them... or very very few of them depending on what it is. I think that in and of itself is a balance component right and you need to make sure that the players who are striving for those legendary things and who are devoting the time energy, resources in order to achieve them are accurately rewarded... We do not intend on having legendary items that are temporary.^[114] – Steven Sharif