Greeting, Forgers!

We wanted to give you some insight on our spell system. This set of in-game customization is important, not only because it determines playstyle, but it also dictates balance. Many games have issues with ‘must pick’ talents, spells, or mechanics that are simply so much better than the rest that they are mandatory, lest you choose to play at a disadvantage. To address this, the spell system is one that is interchangeable. You get to pick one spell at the beginning, and two more later on for a total of three. For a Salt fee, you can easily switch a spell that you’re not using. However, what sets this system apart is a two-tier spell system that lets you further customize the initial spell! With great choice comes great responsibility, and these choices are often make-or-break within AetherForged.

This system arose from wanting to provide players with a large number of choices with a number of spells that do similar things. Additionally, by having 2 tiers to each spell, where you can’t select the higher tier version until later in the game, we can put more power into the final spell than we otherwise could. We intend to use this system to introduce variety to spell choices so that players can pick the ones that best fit the specific circumstances of each particular match.

We don’t have an issue with a basic “instant mobility” type of spell. However, we intend to balance our spells so that it’s not necessarily always going to be worth picking. This will be done primarily by making other spells equally powerful, rather than making the “instant mobility” spell weaker. Additionally, the much more mobile bent to our kit design also helps Blink not be a requirement in every game.

Blink

Instantly teleports your Forger to your cursor, or towards cursor if it is outside of the range of the spell.

From this basic “instant mobility” spell, we wanted to branch out in a couple of distinct directions – players can choose to upgrade it so that they have a more initiation focused effect in Traverse or one that’s aimed at making subtle changes to their positioning over the course of a fight in Distort. Distort can still be used in a similar fashion to Blink by chaining together multiple uses of it, but doing so will rob it of its full potential.

Traverse

Much longer range blink. However, targeting a point outside of a set distance causes the ability to require a channel, with the channel duration increasing the further away the target point is.

Distort

Shorter range than base blink, but the Forger gains access to multiple charges of the ability. Each charge can be used within a short duration of each other, and the cooldown on each charge is significantly shorter than the cooldown of the other option.

Providing some way to remove high impact crowd control effects from your character is an important thing to do, so we have included such a spell for players to pick up when they are facing against enemy teams with either a lot of crowd control or a few particularly high impact ones. Being able to fight back for the full duration of a fight can mean the difference between winning and losing a game changing team fight, so we expect to see this spell picked up as needed.

Cleanse

Instantly removes all harmful CC affecting your Forger.

For the options that can be selected for the Tier 2 versions of the spell, we wanted to provide an option that focused primarily on offense and an option that focused primarily on defense. While Purify will often be a niche choice, it will help players power through teams that are attempting to make them irrelevant through debuffing effects, and can completely shut down certain abilities that are built around applying debuffs for a short time. Refresh, on the other hand, will often be the generally good option, especially for characters that are interested in surviving a bit longer during the fight. However, it won’t necessarily be the best option for lower health characters like carries, due to the fact that the heal is based on percent max health, rather than a flat amount.

Purify

The cleanse also removes all debuffs and makes your Forger immune to debuffs for a short period of time.

Refresh

If any crowd control effect is removed by the cleanse, your Forger is healed for a percentage of their maximum health.

Guard will often be the go-to selfish defense option for spells, and we expect it will often be picked up by supportive characters as well, in order to upgrade to Bulwark. This spell will be the most efficient choice to pick up against teams that are heavily focused on bursting down players, so we expect to see it picked up often.

Guard

Grants your Forger a shield for a couple seconds.

The upgrades for Guard – Fortify and Bulwark – allow the player to choose between a more selfish playstyle (in Fortify) or a more team oriented one (in Bulwark). Fortify will be an effective answer to teams that are focused on bursting high priority targets, due to the armor and magic resistance that it provides. On the other hand, Bulwark will be very good for supportive players to pick up against teams that are focused on doing lots of area of effect damage.

Fortify

The barrier also grants a flat amount of armor and magic resistance while the shield remains unbroken.

Bulwark

You and all nearby allied Forgers gain a shield.

Lacerate doubles as both a way to clear the jungle slightly faster and as the “kill secure” spell for during the laning phase that will help players tip the balance when skirmishing. The two tier spell system allows us to make Lacerate something worth using on jungle camps without forcing us to balance jungle camps around junglers having notably more damage against the camps in the early game, while still allowing us to have a “monster secure” spell branch out from it.

Lacerate

Deals damage over time to target enemy Forger or monster, gives vision of them for the duration. and reduces any healing they take for the duration. This deals greatly increased damage to jungle monsters, but does not reduce healing on them. The cooldown of this ability is refunded by a large amount of time if you target a monster.

The upgrades to this spell family allow it to remain relevant as a “Kill Secure” effect even into the late game. Siphon will allow characters to last longer in fights, and will likely often be picked up by characters that expect to be brawling against the enemy back line for a while. Combust, on the other hand, doubles as both a bit of extra damage to execute enemy back liners for characters like assassins and as a monster securing tool. Because this effect is tied to the second tier, rather than the first, we expect to see more junglers foregoing this family of spells for other higher impact options, and expect to see assassins or potentially supports or tanks (if the team is in need of a character with the potential to secure a kill on the Leech) taking Combust more often. Even if a jungler does choose to pick up the tree in order to get Combust, they will have uses for it outside of “kill the Leech” in the late game.

Siphon

Your Forger is healed for a percentage of the damage dealt by the ignite effect. This can still be used on monsters for the same effect as Lacerate.

Combust

The damage is dealt instantly instead of over time, but deals reduced damage. Additionally, the amount of damage done to monsters by this ability is increased to an even greater amount. Multiple people on the same team targeting the same unit with this ability within a moderate duration deal drastically reduced damage to that unit.

Phase and its family are often going to be the defensive spell of choice for characters that primarily deal their damage in bursts, and need a way to survive between cooldowns. However, this spell, like many of its kind, has the very real downside of preventing you from doing anything for the duration of it, while also preventing anyone from doing anything to YOU. Characters that do a lot of damage over time that doesn’t require their active participation will want to consider this spell so that they can safely deal their damage while staying totally untouchable.

Phase

Instantly applies the stasis crowd control to your Forger for a couple seconds. During this time, your forger cannot move, basic attack, or cast abilities. However, you cannot be attacked or affected by any abilities that would otherwise affect you.

Glaciate will often be the upgrade of choice for casters that want to reposition slightly during the invulnerability effect. This will most often be something that damage over time characters will want to pick up, especially if their damage is centered around themselves. They can threaten through the “just walk away to safety” strategy that enemies may have with the base spell. On the other hand, Hold will often be picked up by hypermobile characters that intend to dive deep into the enemy backline, kill someone quickly, then wait for the rest of their team to catch up to them or wait for their mobility to come back off of cooldown so that they can escape.

Glaciate

Your forger can move at a reduced movement speed while the stasis is in effect.

Hold

The stasis effect lasts much longer, and you can cancel the ability by recasting it.

The Dash tree is the other main source of mobility that can be gleaned from spells. Unlike Blink, Dash is aimed at long-term mobility that will help the player reposition effectively over a period of time, so it will often be useful for characters that want to be able to stick to a specific target.

Dash

Instantly gives the Forger a %MS buff and allows you to move through other units while the movement speed buff is active.

Like with Guard, the upgrade options are split between “selfish” and “team oriented”. Charge will most often be picked up by characters that are interested in diving onto the enemy backline, as it will help them get past the crowd control of the front line or supports that are staying back with the backline. On the other hand, Rally will help provide soft initiation potential for characters that want to help their team follow up after another team member goes in the fight to start locking down high priority targets. Alternatively, Rally can be used to help your team escape after a close or losing team fight.

Charge

Your Forger becomes immune to disables for a set amount of time, or until a number of crowd control effects would have affected the forger.

Rally

Nearby allies also gain increased movement speed and can pass through all units for the duration of the effect.

Fatigue will often be picked up by supportive characters, as it provides a way to control enemies during laning phase skirmishes while remaining highly relevant through the late game. One of the most important points about fatigue is that it’s a guaranteed effect, unlike slows that are tied to skillshots, so it will often be picked up early as an effective way to keep an enemy in place during a gank.

Fatigue

Slows and reduces the Attack Speed and Power of target enemy Forger by a % for the duration.

Wither will help you and allies by putting a target on the back of the unit that you use the ability on, making it effective for keeping down high priority targets and killing them before they have a chance to get their full damage potential out. On the other hand, Stagger’s larger initial slow makes it ideal for getting picks on enemies, and will usually be picked up by characters that want to ensure that they can get a kill on a particular enemy.

Wither

The withered Forger also takes a percentage of increased damage for the duration of the effect.

Stagger

The targeted Forger is initially slowed for a greater amount, based on how close they are to your Forger. This increased slow decays to the baseline wither slow over a short duration.

Overflowing with Power

What’s your playstyle going to be? What combination of spells are you REALLY interested in trying out? Most importantly, what do you think of this tiered system? Let us know on our Twitter, Discord, or Reddit!

Cheers,

HeroicTechnology