Ability

Abilities by Type

Main Wheel
Melee	Ranged	Magic
Blade	Assault Rifle	Blood Magic
Fists	Pistols	Chaos
Hammer	Shotgun	Elementalism
Misc
Subversion	Turbulence	Survivalism
Auxiliary Wheel
Chainsaw	Rocket Launcher	Quantum
?	?	?
?	?	?

Overview

Abilities are what players use in combat. The majority of them are related to one of the Weapons currently in game, although there is also a Miscellaneous group as well.

There have been references to faction abilities are obtained through routes other than experience gain; supposedly non-combat abilities, but if they are still planned, they are not currently in the game.

Abilities are viewed, purchased, and equipped via the ability wheel, and players can have sixteen abilities equipped to them at any one time. See the Ability Wheel main article for rules governing the purchasing and equipping of abilities.

All abilities are unique instead of just being more powerful forms of earlier abilities or copies of abilities from other weapons. And, in general, abilities you purchase later in the game tend to be more situational, rather than bigger versions of earlier ones. This uniqueness and situational usefulness are meant to create a gameplay where players swap out abilities as needed for various group combinations or encounters.

Types

Main article: Ability Wheel

All Abilities fall into two very broad categories "Active" and "Passive".

Within each category, there are some abilities that are considered "Elite" which may be either active or passive. Additionally some abilities will be considered Resource Point consumers or Resource Point builders. There will also be some abilities that are neither consumers, builders, or elite.

Active

Main article: Active

Abilities that are "active" must be triggered to be used. These are the abilities that you put on your hotbar and use either mouse-click or hot-key to activate.

Passive

Main article: Passive

Abilities that are "passive" do not need to be manually triggered to be used, but will automatically do whatever it is they're supposed to do. These are on a "hidden" hotbar that is only visible when your Ability Wheel is opened, and do not normally show on your GUI since they do not need to be activated in order to work. Some of these will always give a benefit of some sort (always-on bonus to defense for example), while others only take effect when a specific event takes place (gives you an additional bonus to damage whenever you make a critical hit).

Elite

Main article: Elite

Abilities that are "Elite" are the final (7th) abilities in a cell on the ability wheel. Elite abilities are stronger abilities that reward the player for specializing in a certain ability line.orypage=2</ref>

Ability Characteristics

Abilities can have the following characteristics:

• Activation Time - How long does it take for the ability to take effect. AKA "Casting Time"
• Recharge Time - how long does it take before you can reuse the ability. AKA "Cooldown Time"
• Builder / Consumer - abilities either build resources that can be used by other abilities, or consume those resources to activate their effect.
  • Builders are abilities that create Resource Points. These are typically Active abilities, although there are a few Passive abilities that can build resource points. Additionally an ability typically builds resource points for both weapons, although a few (primarily healing weapon abilities) only create points for it's own related weapon.
  • Consumers are abilities that use Resource Points. These are almost exclusively Active abilities. In general, an ability that consumes resource points will do more damage or be more powerful than one that doesn't. Additionally, some consumers will use a fixed number of resource points, while others will use "all available" resource points. Abilities that consume "all available" points will be more effective with the more points used - typically 20% more damage or healing done per point used, with exceptions being noted in the ability description.
• Modifier - Some passive abilities directly improve one specific active abilities.
• Damage - About 1/2 of the abilities do damage of some sort (255 of the 532 as of game version 1.2). There are various damage types and subtypes available to abilities, see the Ability Damage section below for more details.
• Effects - There are a large number of affects available to abilities - Healing, Controlling Aggro, placing Buffs or Debuffs, etc. See the Ability Effects section below for more details.

Ability Damage

Main article: Combat

Damage is broken down into 2 main types - "Physical" and "Magic". With a few very rare exceptions, the Magic weapons do Magic damage. Melee and ranged weapons both do Physical damage (with no currently known exceptions).

The weapons can either do damage to a single enemy target or to multiple enemy targets.

There are "sub-types" of damage available to weapon abilities, depending on if they are single-target or multi-target.

The single-target damage sub-types are:

• Normal - The majority of abilities do not have a special sub-type of damage, and unless they explicitly state that they do, they are considered to do Normal damage sub-type
• Burst - An attack that attempts to land a hit multiple times. Could be 2-5 times, but typically 3. Each attack in the burst rolls to-hit and damage separately from the others.
• Focus - A Channeled attack. Requires the attack to take place over an extended duration, doing damage every so often during that duration
• Strike - An attack that does more damage than most other single-target attacks. Often offset by having longer Activation or Recharge timers than similar non-strike abilities.

The multi-target damage sub-types are:

• Normal - The majority of abilities do not have a special sub-type of damage, and unless they explicitly state that they do, they are considered to do Normal damage sub-type
• Blast - A PBAoE attack that could be Cone or Column shaped, affecting a number of targets within that area. For TSW, typically up to 5 targets.
• Chain - A TAoE attack that hits it's intended target, and then "jumps" to another nearby enemy target as well. The number of times the attack can "jump" as well as the distance allowed for each jump is dependent on the abilities description. Although most TSW abilities are 4 jumps of 3 or 5 meters max.
• Frenzy - A circular PBAoE attack that strikes at a number of targets around you. Each attack rolls separately for to-hit and damage from the other attack. Nearly all TSW Frenzy attacks affect upto 5 targets within 5 meters of you.

While the special multi-target sub-types define their areas of effect, the "normal" multi-target attacks also have additional ways of determining which enemies are affected:

• GTAoE - Ground-Target AoE - The player selects a point on the ground (which may or may not have an enemy there) for the ability to take affect. These attacks are always circular shaped in TSW.
• PBAoE - Point-Blank AoE - Attack originates from the character. These attacks may be one of these shapes:
  • Circular - Default shape, used unless the ability specifies otherwise
  • Column - Some column shaped abilities also include a Dash effect.
  • Cone
• TAoE - Targeted AoE - The ability takes effect originating from the intended enemy target. These attacks are always circular shapped in TSW.

Note that the GTAoE, PBAoE, and TAoE types of attack may also include a "Persistent Ground Effect" that lingers in the affected area for some time after the ability has been used.

Ability Effects

There are a large number of effects that abilities can use or create.

• States - Some abilities are able to put enemies into a specific state. Other abilities are able to do more damage or have additional effects when hitting a target that is in a certain state. The 4 states are:
  • Afflicted - Under the effect of a DoT
  • Hindered - Rooted or Snared
  • Impaired - Sunned
  • Weakened - Under the effect of a Debuff

• Triggers - Some abilities are more likely to trigger certain types of hits or defenses. Other abilities are able to do additional damage, give additional defense, or have additional effects when when a triggering hit or defense occurs (or after a number of these triggers have occurred). The Triggers are:
  • Critical
  • Penetrating
  • Hit - A normal, Non-Glanceing hit
  • Block
  • Evade

• Healing - There are 4 main forms of healing available in the game
  • Direct Healing - The target is healed instantly
  • Heal over Time - The target is healed for some amount every interval for a fixed duration
  • Leech Healing - The friendly target is healed when the enemy target takes damage
  • Barrier - Not a traditional form of healing, but listed here because used by healing weapons, it absorbs damage that would have been done to the character

• Purge/Cleanse - Removes De/Buffs
  • Purge - Removes Buffs from enemy targets
  • Cleanse - Removes Debuff from friendly targets

• Summon - Summons a turret, drone, or manifestation that fights alongside you. Note: TSW summons are not directly under the control of the players and cannot be given commands but follow preset actions. There currently are no "Combat Pets" that can be summoned and controlled.

• Aggro Control - Abilities that modify the damage you do so that you generate either greater-than-normal or less-than-normal Aggro for the amount of damage you're doing.

• Knock/Pull - Abilities that either knock enemy targets back away from you, or that pull them towards you. These are often, but not always, coupled with setting State = Impaired.

• Movement - Abilities that affect your movement (as opposed to Knock/Pull abilities or that set the State = Hindered on enemies). Typically either abilities with a Dash effect or that increase your normal movement rate.

Decks

Your Deck is the abilities you currently have equipped. There are Pre-Built Decks available, which are suggested build paths, meant to give players an idea of something to work towards with their Ability Point allocation. You can view these pre-built decks by opening your Ability Wheel (typically shortcut key "N") and looking to the left of the wheel. While the pre-built Decks are faction specific, any player can create a deck using the same abilities as a pre-built deck from another faction. The only difference would be that the clothing rewards from completing a pre-built deck are only granted to characters of the same faction as the pre-built version.

Player-created Decks can be saved using the in-game Gear Manager feature on the Character Sheet in order to make it easier to swap decks/builds without having to manually slot the abilities on the hotbars.

See the main article Deck for detailed information about pre-built decks as well as theory crafting and building customized decks.

Starter Decks

Added in Update 1.4 Big Trouble in the Big Apple, these are Pre-Build first tier abilities to help as you progress your way through the Ability Wheel. It is a suggested build to give you something to work on as you fill out the larger Decks.

References

Related Articles

• See Ability Wheel for information about how the abilities are laid out on the wheel as well as rules governing purchasing and equipping abilities
• See Deck and Starter Decks for a description of pre-built decks the game offers as suggestions as well as theory crafting for building custom decks
  • Also see Synergy for selecting weapons and abilities
• See Weapon for an overview of the primary and auxiliary weapons as well as links to the articles detailing individual weapons and their abilities.
• See Skill for Weapon skills - which are related to, but different from, abilities

References

Abilities
▪ Assault Rifles ▪ Pistols ▪ Shotguns ▪ Blades ▪ Fists ▪ Hammers ▪ Blood Magic ▪ Chaos ▪ Elementalism ▪ Misc
▪ Rocket Launcher ▪ Chainsaw ▪ Quantum