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"Let's clean up and rebuild the Keep!" |
The fateless one destiny card.
Like most RPGs Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning utilizes a basic three class system which one can choose to base their character around. These three class trees are: Finesse, Sorcery, and Might. The player chooses one main destiny card after escaping Allestar Tower which will affect how they build their character throughout the game. What sets Kingdoms of Amalur apart from most other RPGs is that as the game progresses and the Fateless One gains more experience and levels they can start to intertwine their skill trees together thus opening the door to various class combinations. The three skill trees in the game will allow the player to make three basic types of characters and later allow them to use abilities from a combination of skill trees to make custom Class Characters. In-game, this system is referred to as Destinies.
Might: The Warrior
A Warrior with Longsword and shield
Warriors are strength-based characters following the skill tree of Might. They rely on brute strength, heavy armor, and high defense to vanquish their enemies in battle. The Warrior's weapons of choice are the Greatsword, the Longsword, and the Hammer. Might skills focus on increasing the strength and defense of the warrior, from increasing your resilience to bringing you back from the brink of death to giving your attacks temporary bonuses.
Finesse: The Rogue
A Rogue with Longbow, planting a Frost Trap
Rogues are fighters who rely on stealth and lightning quick attacks to take out their opponents before they even realize that they're under attack. This can mean stealthy kills with backstabbing and smoke bombs, traps scattered across the battlefield, sniping with Longbows, or even simply attacking with the incredibly fast Daggers or Faeblades. Rogues can also specialize in the use of poisons, making every hit count for more and weakening their targets.
Sorcery: The Mage
A Mage with Staff and Chakrams
Mages are spellcasters who fight primarily from a distance with a combination of magic and magical weaponry. In Reckoning, mages tend to rely much more on weapons than they do in other games, as the game's spells focus on a variety of options rather than having a strong suite of general-use spells. Mage weapons, the Chakrams, Sceptre, and Staff, strike from a distance and primarily deal elemental damage instead of physical damage. Sorcery is the skill tree that a player would invest in if they wanted to make a Mage-type character; these skills focus primarily on different levels of spells that either damage enemies with the various elements or provide specialized aid in combat, such as a summoned ally or orbs that damage enemies who get too close.
Finesse/Sorcery: The Spellcloak
A spellcloak emerges from a cloud of smoke wielding her chakrams
Spellcloaks combine the Rogue's backstabbing nature with the Mage's sorcerous might to create a shadowy death-dealer that can completely ignore an enemy's defenses with their wide variety of damage types. It is worth noting, though, that the Spellcloak is probably the single least durable class, making combat a race to kill before you are killed.
Might/Sorcery: The Battlemage
Fateless One with sword and staff
The Battlemage is either a warrior who uses elemental magic to their advantage or a mage who would rather fight the enemy up-close. Battlemages are uniquely able to generate mana whenever they are struck in combat and are preternaturally durable, making them unstoppable juggernauts of destruction. However, they are also the class that receives the fewest damage bonuses, so fights are often long, grinding affairs.
Might/Finesse: The Blademaster
Fateless One with sword and Faeblades
The Blademaster combines the Rogue's speed with the Warrior's weapon skills to become a true master of physical combat. The Blademaster's main advantage is their variety, being able to adapt their style to perfectly match every situation. However, the Blademaster can merely use the same tools in a variety of ways; enemies with heavy armor will prove difficult targets.
Might/Finesse/Sorcery: The Universalist
The Universalist is a jack-of-all-trades, being adept at every form of combat while mastering none. While a Universalist can't go toe-to-toe with a Warrior, overwhelm a Sorcerer with magic, or fight faster than a Rogue, the Universalist overcomes their opponents with the strength of variety, playing on every enemy's weaknesses without exception.
Tips for combination classes
Players are allowed 123 Ability Points total and the vast majority of a class' power/perks can be obtained relatively early (and too many points in one class prevents putting enough in another to make it worthwhile). With that and the following points in mind, characters end up with more overall power and utility by investing in more than one class in a relatively balanced manner. For example:
- Unless the character is fighting strictly with archery as a main attack, everything beyond fourth-tier Finesse is terribly inefficient, because it all starts weak and doesn't scale well or at all. Scattershot is amazing, apocalyptic damage for an archer (basically upgrades your bow into a combat shotgun, begging a 56-point buy), but a dagger/faeblade user can get everything worth spending Ability Points on for only 43 points.
- Might's damage reduction from armor and other abilities rises so quickly that becoming nearly immune to damage isn't very hard, even when using only gear found (avoiding Blacksmithing entirely). Battle Frenzy is fantastic and Stoneskin is good if the character absolutely needs it, but everything nearby/higher is either weak or extremely costly (Celerity would be great if Might abilities didn't stop being useful/efficient at ~40 points, meaning Celerity will cost you an additional 20-33 points by itself).
- Sorcery is very similar, unless a character intends to play strictly with magic (in which case go ahead and buy everything in there). 5 points in Smolder for a total buy of 40 will give the player most of the necessary spell and weapon utility, causing lots of repeating, chaining lightning stuns and Mark of Flame instant AoE interrupts and very high damage (Mark even stuns Trolls 100% of the time, believe it or not, for ~40 mana with an instant cast). Tempest does plenty of damage on its own in a huge area and allows specializing in 1-2 damage types instead of three, versus bothering with Elemental Rage, and will only cost 55 points... Finally, Meteor is the most powerful ability for a Mage not only for its amount of damage but also for the area of impact. When the protagonist primes Meteor, a sort of flaming aura makes him almost invulnerable to enemies attack.
This allows the player to choose almost any mix'n'match character build they like, selecting only the parts they want. The game designers intentionally planned for combat to be varied and interesting (and have said so on camera), and their class system allows it to work well. A Universalist build might initially seem like spreading your character too thin, but considering the above few points, it makes plenty of sense... though the build doesn't really shine or "hit its stride" until much later on in the game.