AoE skills

AoE skills will have some form of diminishing returns that will be tuned based on testing and player feedback during אלפא-2.^[1]^[2]

Player collision inherently limits the number of individuals that can be affected by AoE skills.^[1]

We have a few ideas on how we want to approach AoEs. There's a vein of thought that is regarding diminishing returns [on] maximum number of targets. I'm not a huge fan of that. There is a diminishing return as it applies to damage conveyed. There is just the fact that we're a collision-based game and there's a limited number of bodies that can be located in a particular choke point, or in proximity. There's still things that we're testing especially as part of Alpha 2 that we'll likely be testing and want to get player feedback on as it relates to curbing the AoE approach of most raid comps; and a lot of different games have done a lot of different things to achieve that. We're going to be testing a lot of these different directions and finding which works best for Ashes.^[2] – Steven Sharif

Skill	Primary	Description
Aegis	Tank	Instantly dispels all negative effects on the caster, then creates a protective dome behind the tank for 15 seconds, transferring 50% of all damage received by targets within the area to the tank instead. All targets within the cone also receive increased status effect resistance for the duration.^[3]
Air Strike	Ranger	Leap a great distance forward and into the air while firing three projectiles in a line along the path, each dealing area damage and rooting targets hit for 3 seconds. Rotation control is enabled during cast.^[4] The root effect is nature based.^[5]
Ancestral Bolas	Tank	Throws a magical web of bolas at the target location. All enemies within are snared and build additional hate towards the tank every second. Enemies entering or exiting the radius will be tripped.^[6]
Blizzard	Mage	Channel a massive blizzard around you, raining a barrage of hail shards upon your enemies while channeling. Each shard impact deals ice damage in a small area around it. All enemies in the blizzard also acquire 1 stack of Chilled periodically. Activate the ability again to end the channel early.^[7]^[8]^[9]
Brutal Cleave	Fighter	Perform a wide sweeping attack, dealing damage to all enemies in front of you. This ability shares a cooldown with Overpower, and hitting an enemy with a weapon combo finisher reduces its cooldown by 8 seconds. +10-20 Combat Momentum (based on number of targets hit) ^[10]
Cataclysm	Fighter	Deal heavy damage and apply Shaken to all enemies in a large area in front you. Shaken enemies have a 5% chance to Trip when hit, and the effect is removed when triggered. This chance doubles when hit by Riled targets.^[11]
Chain Lightning	Mage	Release a powerful streak of lightning that hits your primary target and then chains outward to all nearby enemies from that target, dealing lightning damage and applying 3 stacks of Electrified to each target hit.^[12]^[13]^[14]
Collect Cargo	Caravan	Pick up cargo nearest the mouse location and add them to your caravan's storage if there's enough room.^[15]
Communal Restoration	Cleric	Restore health to all party members in range instantly, plus additional healing over time. Allies under the HoT also receive +10% maximum health for its duration.^[16]^[17] This can overheal.^[16]
Concentrated Scatter Shot	Ranger	Scatter Shot becomes a held ability. After being fully charged, you instead fire a single projectile in a forward line that pierces through enemies and deals significantly increased damage. 30m range.^[18]
Cone of Cold	Mage	Blasts a cone of cold in front of the caster, dealing ice damage and applying 1 stack of Chilled to each enemy hit.^[9]^[19]^[20]
Consecrating Wave	Cleric	Send forth a cone of radiance that deals radiant damage to all enemies while healing the ten nearest allies.^[21]^[22]
Divine Flare	Cleric	Place a targeted area heal on the ground that heals all targets within after several seconds. Total healing is split between all targets hit.^[23]^[24]
Ensnaring Vine Field	Ranger	Enemies are Snared while within Vine Field's area of effect.^[25]
Fissure	Mage	Call forth a line of jagged earth spikes in front of the[sic] you, dealing earth damage and applying 10 stacks of Stagger to each enemy hit along its path while launching them upwards.^[26]
Inciting Strikes	Tank	Slashes twice in a forward cone while adding additional threat.^[27]
Leap Strike	Fighter	Leap to target location and deal damage around you, snaring targets hit for 3 seconds.^[28]
Magma Field	Mage	Erupts the earth at target location, forming a boiling pool of lava that deals fire damage to enemies per tick while periodically applying a stack of Burning to enemies within the area.^[29]
Maim	Fighter	Perform a powerful melee strike in a short forward cone, dealing physical damage to all targets hit, plus 100% additional damage to recently tripped targets.^[30]
Meteor	Mage	Conjures a massive flaming rock before sending it hurling toward target location. Upon impact, it deals major fire damage while knocking foes flying, and then continues to roll forward for its remaining distance, dealing additional fire damage while applying stacks of Burning to enemies along its path.^[31]
Multi-Scatter Shot	Ranger	Scatter Shot has an additional charge.^[32]
Quake	Mage	Held ability: Cast a powerful earthquake that deals more damage the longer it was charged and applies 10 stacks of Staggered to all enemies around the caster. If the spell was fully charged, this applies Tripped instead of Staggered.^[33]
Raining Death	Ranger	Fires a dense rain of arrows 20 meters ahead, dealing high damage. Deals more damage to more distant targets.^[34]
Scatter Shot	Ranger	Fires a spread of projectiles, dealing Physical Damage to every enemy target within a 20m cone in front of the caster.^[35]}
Slumber	Mage	Applies the sleeping condition to targets affected within a small area around the primary target, rendering them unable to move or take any action. Any damage dealt to a sleeping target will break the effect. Duration is reduced by 20% for each additional target hit, to a minimum of 40% of base duration.^[36]^[37]^[38]
Thundering Shot	Ranger	Fires a lightning-infused projectile at your target, dealing 200% of your physical power as Lightning damage.^[39]
Vine Field	Ranger	Summons 3 fields of grabbing vines, one at the target location every .5s for 1.5s. Targets hit are damaged for 10% physical damage and snared for 3s, reducing their movement speed by 40%. Targets that have more than 10s of snare duration are rooted. This effect can only trigger once per target.^[40]}
Whirlwind	Fighter	Channeled Ability: Deal physical damage to all enemies around the caster with each spin while channeled, increasing the spin rate the longer it is channeled. The caster is immune to hard disabling effects while spinning. Activate the ability again to end channeling early.^[41]