Battle System

Battle System


One of the many unique gameplay features of Age of Wulin (AoW) is the the battle system.


Skill Category: Skill Function

The skills in AoW can be categorized in many ways. Lets start with the most basic classification based on the functionality of the skills.



Notice that the relationship between the skill types are like Rock, Paper and Scissors.

Real Move
- Majority of the damage skills in AoW are real moves.
- They are the main skills which you would to deal damage to your opponent.
- They will break the superarmor of your opponent's Feint skill and cancel it.
- However, if your opponent is using Block stance, the damage induced will be reduced by a certain percentage (start from 50%, but can be increased or reduced through gear and skills)

Feint
- Feint skills are guard-breaking moves which is used to break and cancel Block stance.
- The enemy will receive 100% damage after their Block stance has been broken and unable to cast Block stance to a certain amount of time.
- However, Feint skills are easily broken by any Real Move.



Block
- Block stance reduces the damage received from any Real Move. The % dmg reductions is governed by two of your stats, depending on the type of the attacking move: Wai Gong (Physical Attack) or Nei Gong (Inner Strength Attack).
- You can maintain your Block stance as long as you hold down the block key (default: right click of mouse).
- Blocking reduce the moving speed by 70%, but you can still move around or jump.
- Block can be broken easily with any Feint skills. If that happens, you cannot use Block for a certain duration.
- Your Block Gauge (which is shown below your HP above char's head) will be depleted gradually when you receive blows from your opponent. The durability and recovery of your block gauge is dependent on your stats.
- Blocking is also a good way to fill up your Fury Gauge, required to cast Fury Moves (see below).



Qi Move
- Qi moves are typically skills which are used to heal, buff and debuff, although certain Qi moves also deal damage.
- They can be easily canceled by any attacks.

The rock, paper and scissors system bring about a highly tactical battle system, which involve feinting, blocking and reading casting motion of skills in order to react fast to your opponent's next move.

Skill Category: Area of Effect (AoE) and Target

AoW skills can also be categorized, in the aspect of AoE and targetting.

Normal Targetting Skills
- These type of skills require players to click a target before casting.
- If there is any obstacles between you and your target, ranged targetting skills will not be cast even if you have locked on to your target.
- If your target move out of range despite being locked on, the targetting skills can be still casted, but no damage will be induced on your target, unless it 's an Approach Skills (see below).
- This means that, your opponent can literally dodge your skills, if he move quickly with Qing Gong (see below) out of the AoE of the skills.



Approach Skills
- Approach skill is a special class of targetting skills.
- You can pre-load ONE of these skills into a "Wait Bar" after you have locked on to your target which is currently out of range.
- The range here, not only refers to the range of you skill itself, but it is the range of your Qing Gong, which is a special class of non-battle movement kungfu.
- When in range, the skills which is in the "Wait Bar" will automatically be executed to approach the target with the corresponding Qing Gong.
- Only 1 Approach skill is allowed to be loaded into the "Wait Bar" at one particular time.
- The Approach skills will be removed from the "Wait Bar" if any other skills are pressed.
- These skills can literally miss, if your opponent move from your target location. So targetting skills does NOT mean that your opponent cannot dodge it.



Non-targetting Skills
- These skills can be casted even if you don't have any target locked-on.
- Normally the AOE is frontal or 360 degree around yourself.



Area-defining Skills
- Area-defining skill is a special class of non-targetting skills.
- After pressing the skills, you can move your mouse to define a certain area before casting it.


There are other ways to classify skills, but i shall leave it for future articles. This is just a basic introduction to the game itself.

Cooldown (CD) and Skill Set
- AoW has no such thing as "Class" or "Job". Your char can learn every single skills in the game, although some skills are extremely rare and hard to come by.
- Joining a School give you an easy access to the skills of the School.
- You can learn skills from other schools by participating in the daily "Book Robbing Event" or buy from other players. Yes, you literally go steal/rob the skill book from the other schools, while the other players in the school will be trying hard to defend it.
- There are other skills which does not belongs to any School and can only be obtained through challenging other factions (basically clear dungeons/instance) and Miracle Encounter (extremely rare)
- Each skill is typically a member in a series of "Skill Set" (套路). - Each school currently has 3 such Skill Set. For example, Scholar has 3 Skill Set, namely Single Sword Skill Set, Twin Sword Skill Set and Kicking Skill Set.
- Each skill set has their own characteristic. Take Scholar for example, Single Sword Skill Set is good for PVE due to the excellent AOE of BladeStorm (which u can see in the video above) and self-healing ability; Twin Sword Skills has 2 ranged skills and 2 attack enhancing party buff; Kicking Skills has good single target DPS, knockdown/knockback effect and is good for PVP.
- Each skill set comes with a Block skill and a Feint and other Real Move and Qi Move. Each of them has unique effect. For example, the Block stance of Single Sword allows you to slow attacking opponent; the Block stance of Twin Sword Skill Set triggers a buff buff that increases MP regen; the Block Stance of Kicking Skill Set triggers a buff that increase Kicking skill damage.
- Each skill has an Individual CD time. After you cast it skill, it will enter cooldown. However, there is another type of CD in AoW, called Shared CD.
- When any skill is cast, all other skills in the same Skill Set will enter a Shared CD of 1 sec.
- When any skill is cast, all other skills in other Skill Set will enter a Shared CD of 7 sec.
- While it would be good for use the best skills from different skills set in battle, the Shared CD restriction prevent the continuous combo of skills from different Skill Set.
- This restriction does not stop you from using Block stance from different skill set, since you can do so before you go into battle. Block stance here is treated as a permanent buff.
- For example, i like the Mp Regen Block ability of Twin Sword Skill Set. So, i would activate the Block "Buff" for Twin Sword Skills Set and wait for the 7sec to be over. After that, even if i use any skills from Single Sword and Kicking Skill Set, i can activate the Block stance of Twin Sword anytime by pressing Right Click (default key for blocking), without invoking the 7sec CD.

Qing Gong
- Qing Gong is a form of (exaggerated) chinese martial arts, whereby the user has the ability to move shiftly and lightly at superhuman speed, perform gravity defying moves such as gliding on water, scaling high walls etc.
- In AoW, Qing Gong can be incooperated into battle. You can use it in the battle and combo it with your skills for evading your opponent's attack or approaching your opponent quickly.
- When Qing Gong is used, your Qing Gong gauge will be depleted gradually, though the gauge will regenerate slowly by itself too. You cannot use Qing Gong if your Qing Gong gauge is emptied.
- Some demonstration of Qing Gong are shown in the video below: