Armor

Alpha-2 Vek plate armor 3D renders. 3D model by Jan-Allen Cauton.^[1]

Dünir tier 5 in-game achievable plate armor 3D turntable.^[2]

The Dünir are suited up for battle with these in-game unlockable tier five armor pieces!^[2]

Dünir tier 5 plate armor 3D render.^[3] This render does not include any special effects as a result of enchanting.^[4]

Armor types in Ashes of Creation.

Alpha-2 armor and mace 3D renders.^[12]

The intent behind the equipment system is that you will have certain types of equipment that are more relevant against the certain type of content that you're attempting to defeat or to succeed at. And what that means is, especially on the defensive side of things, you will want to have different gear sets acquired to be most effective against those particular encounters. On the weapons side of things, weapons have different types of interactions. They have passive stat progression that's available through the weapon type that's going to be relevant based on the way you're kitting your character- in concert with your ability selection as well through the skill tree- on how you're attempting to emphasize your character's waterfall stats; and there's different viable approaches that each class has. We're of course adopting a trinity type system with a hybridization model, so you can flirt the line between the roles to a degree based on player customization; and a agnostic equipment approach allows players to emphasize that hybridization model to a degree. So there's still going to be a spectrum of relevant equipment that's most effective for your character based on the role you're attempting to provide a particular party or yourself solo; and players will do well to stay within that spectrum. But it is something that is intended to be somewhat agnostic of class.^[13] – Steven Sharif

Gear (weapons and armor) has approximately a 40-50% influence on a player's overall power in the game.^[14] This ratio will likely change over time as characters progress through various systems.^[15]

Q: Could you explain in detail what you mean by 50% of player power when talking about gear influence on player power?

A: That's just a general allocation of what players can expect to pursue when enhancing their player character power. Now obviously, the distribution and ratio of those types of influences, whether it be itemization, whether it be level, whether it be, augments choices, and/or skill tree choices: those influences and ratios change through the leveling curve. So, at lower levels your character level is going to be more influential over character power than itemization will be, but at endgame or higher levels, or at the end of the adventuring level progression, that's when itemization really gets an emphasis for its ratio of player power.^[15] – Steven Sharif

Gear is acquired from a number of different sources, such as quests, drops, crafting, legendary bosses, guild-oriented tasks, favor, and unique currencies.^[16]^[17]
- Obtaining gear from drops is relatively hit-and-miss in terms of stats that may be required for specific PvP or PvE encounters. The artisan system is intended to allow a more granular selection of gear types and stats.^[16]

Q: What is your guys' intention for looting for characters, because one of the things we've run into a problem of is, you generally think of a mage as wearing light armor, you generally think of say a ranger wearing medium armor, you think of a tank as wearing heavy armor, or a fighter wearing heavy armor, but we noticed that a lot of the statistics on this gear doesn't quite line up?

A: The drop scenarios that you're talking about are hit or miss on what your intent is; and the economy, through artisanship, is really intended to provide that more granular choice making for the player. But the intent essentially behind what type of gear you should have is entirely dependent on the type of challenge rating you're going up against.^[16] – Steven Sharif

Weapons and armor are not class locked, but certain classes are more efficient with certain types of weapons or armor.^[13]^[18]^[19]^[20]

Different tiers of gear are accessible based on a character's affiliation and level.^[21]^[22]^[23] In general, higher tier gear will be from gear sets.^[17]
- There are no stat requirements for equipping gear.^[21]^[22]^[23]

We have level requirements that are going to be applicable for particular types of gears. There's going to be affiliation requirements for certain types of gear as well; but from a stat perspective we decided not to go down that route; and the only reason for that is we don't want to shoehorn people into particular types of builds; and stats relate to those particular types of builds because there's a lot of versatility that exists within our class system. They don't have to play it per-se and that lends itself to a meta. It's like, oh you're a tank where you have to tank constitution and if you don't take constitution you don't get access to this really cool tank breastplate. You know stuff like that. It can feel a little too restrictive when you start to dictate from a stat perspective how a player must build their character.^[21] – Steven Sharif

Specific and necessary crafting materials for higher tier items can only be obtained through the deconstruction of lower-tier items. This is designed to keep lower tier crafted gear relevant through progression and across expansions.^[24]
- The bulk of a weapon's power comes from its crafting recipe and the materials used in its construction.^[25]

A big component of gear usefulness or relevancy, as either you're progressing or as expansions come out or whatnot, is that there is a deconstruction method associated with gear; and that deconstruction can provide very specific and necessary crafting materials that can only be achieved through deconstruction of certain types of gears. And then additionally as we consider expansions and additional itemization paths and tiers going forward, all gear is going to remain relevant within the tiers that they exist. So from a progression standpoint, as you achieve access to different types of tiers, those gears are still going to have relevancy within that tier.^[24] – Steven Sharif

Gear is not subject to inventory weight limits.^[26]

Players may access their gear and other completed items in warehouses at any node, regardless of citizenship or housing ownership.^[27]^[28]^[26]

Some of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.

Certain higher-end weapons and armor will have active abilities, but the intention is that these abilities will not radically redefine the way an archetype is played.^[29]

Active skills that do get associated with certain types of pieces of armor and/or weapons: those will be much on the higher-end if they're an active ability that comes with those things. But I still don't think that the intended impact of those types of abilities is for us to radically redefine the way a particular archetype might play.^[29] – Steven Sharif

Stats on gear

Crafters will be able to assign different skills/abilities and stats on gear.^[30]^[31]

Crafters will be able to 'rejigger' stat blocks; and there will be a couple of other ways to move things around to create both the look and the stat block that you're looking for. It's not always going to be easy. There will be a lot of challenges involved with that. But the goal is to give you guys the option to customize your gear the way you want them to be.^[30] – Jeffrey Bard

Master crafters will be able to influence several (but not all) stats on their crafted items.^[30]^[32]
- Stats on crafted items will vary based on the item's rarity.^[33]
There will also be methods of moving stat blocks around but this won't necessarily be an easy task.^[34]^[30]
All gear will be able to be assigned any stat.^[30]

This section contains potentially outdated information from Alpha-1 testing.

Gear is broken down into Core Stats and Additional Stats.^[35]

Gear slots

Alpha-2 Level 25 Mage character sheet UI.^[36]

We wanted to create something that would handle a couple of different roles, with obviously your equipment slots for what we call a "paper doll", which is that display of your character. Eventually it won't just be a image of your character, we hope to have the 3D character and be able to rotate around, look at what you're wearing. And then we wanted to support a couple of different features here, with some base stats; the equipment, which will show what equipment you have available to quick swap, so you don't have to have your inventory and the screen open; detailed stats for those people who want to get into all of the details; and then of course gear sets. So this is going to be able to swap to your sets of gear quickly; and being able to save different loadouts.^[37] – Colby Marchi

There are multiple gear slots in Ashes of Creation.^[37]

3 Back slots.^[37]
- 1 Ranged slot.^[38]^[39]^[37]^[40]^[41]
- 1 Ranged offhand slot.^{[ citation needed ]}
- 1 Cloak/cape slot.^[39]^[40]^[41]
- 1 Backpack slot.^[39]^[41]

3 Belt slots.^[37]
- 1 Mainhand slot equips a player's primary weapon.^[38]^[42]^[43]^[44]^[45]^[41]
- 1 Offhand slot can equip shields, spell focuses, sigils, and dual weapons.^[38]^[46]^[41]
- 1 Potion/Pouch/Scroll slot.^[40]^[47]

8 Armor slots.^[37]^[48]
- 1 Helmet slot.^[37]^[5]
- 1 Shoulder slot.^[37]^[6]
- 1 Chest slot.^[37]^[9]
- 1 Wrist slot.^[37]^[10]
- 1 Glove slot.^[37]^[6]
- 1 Waist slot.^[37]^[6]^[11]
- 1 Leggings slot.^[37]^[6]
- 1 Boot slot.^[37]^[10]
5 Jewelry slots.^[37]
- 2 Accessory slots.^[37]
- 1 Necklace slot.^[37]^[49]
- 2 Ring slots.^[37]^[50]
3 Artisan gear slots.^[51]^[37]^[52]
1 Artisan tool slot is used to equip gathering tools.^[53]
There may be a specific slot for musical instruments, but this has not been finalized yet.^[54]

Previously it was stated there were 16 gear slots.^[48]

Gear is not subject to inventory weight limits.^[26]

Armor characteristics

Kaelar armor.^[55]

You're not going to get one set of armor that's going to be situationally relevant for every encounter you might face- that's crazy- and as a result of that you're going to have to succeed in acquiring sets that are situationally relevant for the types of encounters you are intending to face.^[56] – Steven Sharif

Light, medium, and heavy armor weights have different characteristics.^[34]

Stat values will be predominately the same but may be able to be adjusted by crafters who are capable with that type of armor.^[34]
- Physical Defense Mitigation.^[34]
- Magical Defense Mitigation.^[34]

The stat values on armor can include both damage dealing and damage mitigation stats.^[56]

Certain armor types are going to have certain type of predominant stat values. So there's going to be certain waterfall stats and/or certain primary attributes that are available on certain armor types; and then if you want to have the one that's not more prominently available- those will be rare to get- you'll have to elicit the services of a crafter who's very capable within that particular type of armor in order to get the non-traditional stats and/or waterfalls available. So there's still the ability to get whatever on these but they're going to be more predetermined for certain types of stats and waterfalls.^[34] – Steven Sharif

Set bonuses are granted to wearers of exclusively one "type" of armor, for example: all cloth, or all plate.^[34]^[34]^[57]

There'll be certain types of set bonuses granted across specific full sets or partial sets of armor types. There will be a similar function in how damage is mitigated based on the type of armor you're wearing and how that relates to physical or magical incoming damage. So that's something to keep in mind. It's going to be situational what type of adversarial foe am I facing and what armor is the best against that to mitigate damage.^[34] – Steven Sharif

The "type" of armor (cloth, leather, plate) a character is predominantly wearing is visible in their nameplate.^[34]^[58]
- There will be strengths and weaknesses for armor sets that opponents can exploit with gear enhancements, for example.^[34]

You're going to have certain strengths and weaknesses of armor sets and those can be specced into by your opponents. For example, I might place some type of elemental enhancements on my weapon that horizontally changes my outgoing damage and that's going to reflect based on the opponent on my target opponent and what type of armor they have available to them to counter that.^[34] – Steven Sharif

Itemization choice may potentially play into universal skill sets such as Dodge, Parry, and Active blocking.^[34]

We're playing a little bit with the idea of these universal skill sets, such as dodge, parry, block, active blocking, stuff like that; and progression within those areas. There is something to be said I think for incorporating itemization choice as part of that system as well; and how it might affect that system. That's something that I think is going to be coming up in the pitch phase here shortly from design as we implement those universal skills. So you can look out in the future for more information on that.^[34] – Steven Sharif

Light armor

Kaelar Level 20 robe set 3D render.^[59]

This set is a level 20 set and this is not cosmetic. This is an in-game achievable armor set I believe.^[59] – Steven Sharif

Light armor (also referred to as Robes and Cloth armor).^[60]^[61]

Light armor is more mobile than heavier armor.^[62]
Light armor is geared towards magical damage mitigation.^[63]^[64]

Medium armor

Level 10-20 crafted leather armor set 3D render.^[65]

Leather gives you a blend between both worlds. It also will have different types of set benefits that aren't purely related to damage mitigation. So that could be outgoing skill damage, it could be critical chances, it could be some other waterfall stats that are associated with it. Our armors don't just boil down to damage type mitigation.^[56] – Steven Sharif

Medium armor (also referred to as Leather armor) can incorporate robe, chainmail, and plate, influences.^[60]^[61]^[66]

May provide some benefits from light armor or heavy armor.^[56]
May also include benefits that aren't purely related to damage mitigation, such as improved critical chance.^[56]

Heavy armor

Tier 5 in-game earnable Kaelar plate armor 3D renders.^[67]

Heavy armor is predominantly plate metal, but may incorporate other influences, such as leather.^[66]

Heavy armor typically has more HP than lighter armor.^[62]
Heavy armor is geared towards physical damage mitigation.^[63]

Class weapons and armor

Weapons and armor are not class locked, but certain archetypes or classes are more synergistic with certain types of weapons or armor.^[13]^[18]^[19]^[20]

This also applies to weapon skills.^[68]

Weapons are intended to be somewhat agnostic in the sense that you can find a way for a weapon to be utilized by different classes. Not just the rogue is going to be able to use daggers. Because if you restrict equipment through that, it makes the economy more difficult to have sustainability across the market of items.^[20] – Steven Sharif

Certain abilities require certain items to be equipped.^[69]

Q: We had stated that we were going to allow people to use any class combination, which would be both your archetypes together, being able to use any weapon. Do we see problems that could occur with that, for instance like a bow tank, or an orb tank or things like- will there be some strangeness there, or are there problems that you first are foreseeing in the future?

A: We're giving a lot of flexibility to the crafters in our game. They get to help define the stat block that a particular item, weapon, or gear has; and that stat block can be relevant to any particular class or archetype combination. So in that sense the idea is, no not to see any strangeness there or not to see any elements that would dissuade a person from that customization perspective.^[70] – Steven Sharif

Racial weapons and armor

Armor racial appearances in early Alpha-1.^[71]

Violet light and myself are wearing exactly the same armor set right: Same stats, same everything, but it drops for her it looks one way, it drops for me it looks another way; and... a small part of that is gender, but then the other part of it is race. So because I was a Vaelune in that playthrough my armor was in the Vaelune style; and when she picked it up it was in the elven style because she was an elf. So that gives you an example of sort of the breadth of looks that we're going for and how we try to capture like who you are as as a character and allow you to build your look that way.^[72] – Jeffrey Bard

Dünir and Empyrean racially styled armor concept art by Keith Kovach.^[73]

We have essentially sets that exist across all races; and each race that dons those armor sets is going to have their own racial influence on the presentation of those particular sets. So that's something that's unique in how each of the races get diversified.^[74] – Steven Sharif

Weapons and armor are not race locked, but armor will take on a racial appearance.^[75]^[74]^[76]^[77]

I think it just makes sense that these meshes are different for certain more central pieces to the outfit, because the race that's donning them is inherently a different culture. So, if you're this Orc looking dude, you don't want to be seen wearing a deformed human Kaelar chest plate design. You want to have probably some type of like massive metal piece on the chest and some ripped tattered-looking leather components on the stomach or whatever, because that Orc visual- that fantasy is visually different than what usually can come along with deforming meshes across different bodies. So what I pushed for within our pipeline was this requirement that each race has different modeled armor pieces that the thematic components can be applied to, whether that be material choice, attachments, other bespoke meshes that are necessary, whatever: so that we get a more comprehensive cultural representation of these races.^[75] – Steven Sharif

Racial appearance of gear is focused on Armor. Weapons will not change in appearance but will scale in size based on race.^[78]^[79]

Let's say for example you have the Eagle set or something, right: The Eagle set has in art, it has a thematic design that's going to include certain attachments to the armor. It's going to include color palette and theme. It's going to have some aspects to it that define it as the Eagle set, right. When a Elf wears the Eagle set or when an Orc wears the Eagle set, you obviously have two different cultures there; and you don't want to stomp out that culture by assigning a de facto 'This is the Eagle set and this is how it looks on everybody.' What we want to have is cultural influences play a role in showing how that set looks.^[79] – Steven Sharif

Racial appearance of gear sets is tied to the character model of that race.^[80]

When you say, what if I'm an Orc but want to look like an Elf and I want my Eagle set to be the Elf representation? Well the issue becomes there that Orcs have a different organic model. You know, their body is different than that of the Elf. So, from a scope-creep standpoint, it's one thing to add different influences that represent the cultures that are donning the armor; it's another thing to adapt each influence as a matrix that can be worn pretty much by everything. From a scope perspective, that's a very difficult task for the character artists to tackle. So instead what we've done is, in order to facilitate a variety of cultural representation between the races but allow for the sharing of assets like different armor sets, we give different representations of those armor sets to each race.^[80] – Steven Sharif

Q: Since a single armor set will look different on each race, how will we have large varieties of in-game achievable gear for each race if we have to make nine different looks for each set?

A: The approach for that is to create a modular piece set for armor creation; and the way we achieve that is by two steps: So, on the modeling side, each race has these geo sets basically where you're creating pieces of the armor for heavy plate armor, for medium, for robes; and you get to grab those modular pieces and mix and match as design makes a request for a particular set to the art teams. So, design comes along and they say, "hey we have a theme for a set that we want to create", so let's use Carphin in that example; and that theme from design's standpoint is going to include color, it's going to include materials, it's going to have an etymology for the set to give a background so that they can incorporate certain types of attachments- whatever they want to include on the art side. Then, the character team says, "okay let's take our base sets of geo and let's mix and match those pieces to create the Carphin set and then we're going to do a materials pass on it, and then we're going to do a color pass on it"; and that way we have a lot of essentially pieces of the puzzle to create these many different unique sets. Now we can also deform pieces across from race to race. So, even if we create unique geo on a per-race basis, we can grab the pauldron from the Human set and put it onto the Vek representation; and the end game there is that we have a particular set, for example Carphin, and that Carphin is communicating the theme; and when you don the armor for the Carphin set- you've acquired the Carphin set and you put it on- it is going to look Vek if you're a Vek. It is going to look Kaelar if you're a Kaelar, but it is still going to have the identity and the theme of the Carphin set.^[81] – Steven Sharif

Appearance

Alpha-1 female plate armor 3D render.^[82]

We want to be realistic with the application of particular types of armor, such as plate armor. In this regard for the different sexes there's a fine line that has to be drawn between accentuating the form of the sex as well as making it somewhat realistic and actually applicable to the environment.^[82] – Steven Sharif

Gear is intended to be realistic in appearance.^[82]^[83]^[84]

There will not be "oversized" weapons.^[85]

Armor will not be overly sexual in appearance.^[82]^[84]
I'm more of the mind that it wouldn't really serve a purpose to have bikini plate armor, just in like reality, if you're going to have armor, it should be protective. I think from a fashion statement is enjoyable for some people, but it's a an immersive issue.^[83] – Steven Sharif
- Some armor and costumes will be more revealing than others, but there will not be nudity in the game.^[86]
There might be sliders, but there are not gonna be naked sliders.^[86] – Steven Sharif

Armor will take on a racial appearance.^[81]^[79] Weapons will scale in size based on race.^[78]

Each race is getting its custom geo pieces, which then will share thematic components such as color palette, attachments, design filigree. Those types of things will get shared across the geo but generally you're going to see unique races with unique geo.^[87] – Steven Sharif

The appearance of crafted gear is influenced by its rarity.^[88]
- Particle effects are used to denote the importance and rarity of some weapons.^[89]

Crafters are able to influence what their crafted items look like.^[30]^[90]

Cosmetics can be used by all races but there may be slight variations to make them work with the body builds of each race.^[91]

Dye cosmetics can be used to change gear colors.^[92]^[93]^[94]

Helmet display can be toggled on and off.^[5]

Hair will likely be masked if helmet display is toggled on.^[95]

Weapons are able to be sheathed.^[41]^[96]

Appearance slots/Transmogs

Alpha-2 plate armor set 3D renders. 3D model by Jan-Allen Cauton.^[97]

Gear will have appearance slots (Transmutation/Transmog/cosmetic slots) that are used to copy the appearance of an item (in some cases).^[98]^[99]^[100]^[23]

We do have a transmog system that is planned. It's not in yet of course, but we have plans around it; and our armor sets are crafted in such a way to facilitate that, both from a dye perspective as well as to swap individual pieces of mesh appearances with other mesh types.^[98] – Steven Sharif

There are rules when applying cosmetics to specific items, unlike costumes, which don't have level restrictions.^[101]
Cosmetic slots can be toggled on or off on their character by the player.^[102]

Cosmetics, whether purchased from the shop or earned in game, are an important component of MMORPGS I personally enjoy; and there's a lot of collectors out there who spend a great deal of time either in-game achieving these things or spend money purchasing them from the cosmetic only marketplace; and we don't want to demean or reduce that achievement or that expenditure. So it's going to be situational where the default appearance will be applied and can be activated.^[103] – Steven Sharif

A default player appearance may be automatically applied during sieges, PvP events, or other large-scale battles to improve client-side performance.^[104]^[103]^[105]^[106]

When you enter into a siege environment, when you enter into a PvP event you are then able to utilize the default player appearance perspective, which removes cosmetics and removes specific gear visuals and instead gives a basic appearance for each armor type, whether it be cloth, plate, or leather. This obviously cuts down on the rendering performance issues that can occur in high density battles.^[104] – Steven Sharif

Attachments

Attachments are able to be unlocked as flair pieces to armor to create a customizable look.^[107]

There will be hundreds of attachments available ranging from a small clasp to the front plate of a breast plate.^[107]

Dyeable items

Dyes only affect tagged portions of dyeable armor or cosmetic items.^[108]

The dyeability of costumes depends on the specific costume.^[108]

Outside of wanting to keep maybe some identity from a lore perspective; for example if you have like a white lion's suit of armor, you may not want that white lion suit of armor to be black or blue. So, it's possible. It depends on the costume itself.^[108] – Steven Sharif

Backer only armor skin

All Kickstarter backers receive a unique armor skin set.^[109]

Cosmetic store

Ashes of Creation cosmetic store.^[110]

There is going to be legendary cosmetics that can be earned and achieved in the game through the game systems, but that's going to take a significant amount of effort and work; and those cosmetics are going to be on-par with the cosmetics offered in the marketplace... What that does is it provides additional revenue to the company so that we can continue to fund the development of content as well and bridge the divide that not having a box cost would have and not having any pay-to-win mechanics whatsoever.^[111] – Steven Sharif

The Cosmetic store enables players to purchase Cosmetics for use in Ashes of Creation.^[92] The cosmetic store offers limited time, limited quantity items to help sustain game development.^[112]

Cosmetics achievable in-game will be on-par, and in the case of legendary skins, even more elaborate than shop items.^[113]^[114]^[115]^[111]^[116]^[117]^[112]
- There will be legendary cosmetics that are only achievable in-game that will never be offered in the cosmetic shop.^[115]^[111]^[117]

Quality of cash shop cosmetics should be equal to in-game achievable cosmetics, but offer a diverse selection of unique looks.^[116] – Steven Sharif

Nothing in Ashes of Creation will be pay to win.^[113]^[118]^[119]^[120]^[121]^[111]^[122]^[117]^[123]^[124]

Nothing in our shop will ever be pay to win as we believe this practice greatly hurts the MMORPG genre.^[123]

Cash shop cosmetics will offer a diverse selection of unique looks.^[116]

I want to incentivize purchase in the cosmetic shop for sustainability of what expansions we have intended, since we are not a box cost. I want to incentivize purchase by offering limited items: limited time, limited quantity, so you have confidence that when you purchase them, they won't be offered later on in some other way.^[112] – Steven Sharif

There will be no in-world advertising of shop items.^[125]

Are we going to advertise cosmetics in-game? No. There's not going to be any marketplace transaction advertisements that are in the client. There might be an interactable shop that you can open from a UI perspective, but you're not going to see a thing that's interrupting.^[125] – Steven Sharif

All cosmetic store items will be non-tradeable.^[126] There will be no gifting mechanism for cosmetic items.^[127]

I don't want cosmetic items that can be purchased from the market to be transferable... because it is in a way a transfer of money for potentially something in-game.^[127] – Steven Sharif

Gear sets

2nd Sword Division non-cosmetic gear set 3D renders. 3D model by Keith Kovach.^[128]

Not all armor sets will be the cookie cutter set. They will have the influences from the crafter available in it, if it's a crafted set.^[31] – Steven Sharif

Equipping the Titanbark gear set in Alpha-2.^[129]

We're going relatively traditional in the gear access points by being driven by level tier that players will have access to. So as you advance in your adventuring class you will begin to unlock the ability to equip gear of a higher level.^[22] – Steven Sharif

Gear sets (also known as tier sets) are a part of Ashes of Creation.^[17]^[22]^[23]

In general, higher tier gear will be from gear sets.^[17]

Q: How often will armor be part of an entire armor set with other cosmetically matching pieces versus unique armor pieces that don't match or go along with anything else in the game?

A: There is a balance of both set pieces and non-set pieces and usually you're going to see at higher grades within a tier are going to be more predominantly set driven; and the lower interstitial power levels of the gear for that tier are the potentially bespoke pieces; and obviously those pieces are catered around a number of different interactions, such as ones you get from quests, ones that you get from drops, ones that you can craft, ones that you get from legendary bosses, ones that you get from guild-oriented tasks, or in-game favor and unique currencies. So there's different types of acquisition models and each of them has a spattering of either bespoke pieces or set-oriented pieces; and there are even varying levels of set pieces as well. So you might have a full eight piece set, or a three-piece set, or a five piece set, depending on where it lives within the tier.^[17] – Steven Sharif

Players gain bonuses depending on the number and tier of pieces they have equipped.^[17]^[22]^[23]

Racial appearance of gear sets is tied to the character model of that race.^[80]

It will be possible to store and swap gear loadouts with a single button press when out of combat.^[26]^[37]^[130]

Approximately 49 unique gear sets were obtainable in Alpha-1 from crafting, quests, drops and exploration.^[131] These were unique sets with different stats, but some may be similar in appearance.^[131]

Some of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.

There are passive abilities that can be chosen to become more adept with certain set types.^[23]
There will be viable non-set builds.^[132]

List of gear sets

Alpha-2 in-game achievable Carphin robe gear set 3D turntable. 3D model by Emanuel Gonzalez.^[133]

A lot of games that I've been a player of, the cosmetics look better. They incentivize you to acquire the cosmetics because they always look way better than what's achievable in-game. This is our attempt to create parity in that regard.^[133] – Steven Sharif

In-game achievable gear sets.^[133]^[131]^[22]^[23]

Best-in-slot armor

A design goal for Ashes of Creation is to not have overarching best-in-slot items (BiS) that are meta for all situations.^[134]

What is considered best-in-slot is based on a character's role and the type of encounter they are facing.^[134]^[135]

There's still going to be customization within realms for your archetype that you will want to spec into, knowing you're going into a certain fight, or into a certain raid, or into a certain war, or whatever it may be: and you may want to spec specifically and gear specifically and have people set up in a way that makes the most sense for that.^[136] – Margaret Krohn

Crafted items are considered best-in-slot in Ashes of Creation.^[137] Previously it was stated that crafted items will be on-par with best-in-slot items.^[138]

Instanced content will contain scripted and difficult boss fights that drop gear, but the gear drops will not be best-in-slot. These can only be found in the open world.^[139]

Gear enhancement

Gear enhancements are possible both during and after an item is crafted.^[140]^[141]

There is a combination of systems that take an item to its max potential. Players will need to contribute in a certain number of these systems to reach max. Some of the systems are an either/or situation.^[140] – Kory Rice

Crafting recipes can be enhanced by adding higher rarity or different crafting materials into their selectable crafting slots at crafting stations.^[141]^[142]^[143]^[144]

Enchantment scrolls and tempering allow gear to be enhanced post-crafting.^[145]^[146]^[141]^[147]

Gems and sockets enable the addition of additional waterfall stats to items.^[148]

The bulk of a weapon's power comes from its crafting recipe and the materials used in its construction.^[25]

The contribution of materials to crafting an item results in advancing the rarity of that item. Now, that doesn't exclude players who don't have the legendary or the higher quality contributed resources from progressing their common item up the rarity tree through enchantments such as scroll enchanting or through tempering the gear. Both of those can affect the quality and the rarity of the gear that you produce, but by contributing the resources during the crafting process you are getting a head start with the higher quality item and now are less dependent on those other avenues to achieve that, which might be again a different vertical space of progression that you don't have as good of access to.^[141] – Steven Sharif

Some of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.

Runes/Power stones are potential methods for enhancing weapons.^[149]^[150]
Enchantment stones are potential rewards for performance over six month PvP seasons. These grant temporary PvP-focused benefits to gear (via a socketing system).^[151]^[152]

Enchanting

Enchanting is not an artisan profession in its own right. Scribes create scrolls that can be utilized by different professions to create enchantments relating to that profession.^[153]^[154]

Enchantment scrolls can be sold on the open market.^[141]^[153]^[155]

Enchanting does not increase an item's level requirement.^[156]

You don't really push a particular item's level requirement or the identity of that item. You can enhance it, you can add enchantments to it, but it's still the item it is.^[156] – Steven Sharif

Switching gear

Alpha-2 Mage swapping from a Greatsword to a Wand while in combat.^[157]

Switching weapons (default keybind `)^[158] is possible while in combat but armor cannot be swapped while in combat.^[38]^[159]^[160]^[42]^[43]^[45]^[161]
- Some ranged or melee abilities require a specific weapon to be equipped. Weapons that are equipped in the character's ranged or offhand slots will be automatically swapped in and out as required by the skill.^[42]^[43]^[45]
- Players can select which weapon they wish to use as their primary weapon for basic attacks.^[42]
- Previously it was stated that swapping weapons (from inventory) into a hand or range slot is not possible in combat.^[160] Prior to this, weapon swapping was said to be subject to a cooldown period (in the range of a few seconds) following any damage taken or done by the player.^[162]^[163]

You may not swap armor when you're in combat, but you may swap your weapons; and there's obviously a few reasons of why this can be important: We're a itemization agnostic class design, so players equip with items that there are most necessary based on the adversary or the challenge that they're facing; and so we want that to be available for players to swap with weapons.^[159] – Steven Sharif

It is possible to store and swap gear loadouts with a single hotkey button press when out of combat.^[26]^[37]^[130]

There will be a loadout system that you can use in your inventory to help manage those different types of set that you can customize. So you can do a simple hotkey press and be able to swap your armors, out of combat of course, with a single button click.^[26] – Steven Sharif

Artisan gear and adventuring gear do not need to be swapped for either to be effective when they are equipped on a character.^[164]^[51]^[52]

Trading gear

Alpha-2 player trading UI.^[165]

Alpha-2 trade request UI.^[166]

There is player-to-player trading in Ashes of Creation.^[165]^[166]^[167]^[168]^[169]

Q: Will Ashes of Creation have player-to-player trading? Will there be anything stopping me from gifting a friend that's fresh to the game a bunch of in-game money to help them get on their feet quickly?

A: There won't be anything to stop you from doing that.^[168] – Steven Sharif

Player to player trading, interacting with vendors or NPCs, and the ability to access storage is disabled for corrupted players.^[170]^[171]^[172]

Security systems are in place to combat RMT and other forms of cheating.^[167]^[173]^[174]^[175]^[176]

The nature of player to player trading already introduces that in an open economy game... that is why we have measures to attempt and heat flag suspicious transactions, active gms and other honeypot systems/agents that will be active in discovering those types of cheaters.^[167] – Steven Sharif

Sharing gear with alts

There will be a "comfortable" number of character slots available for alts.^[177]^[178]
- Alpha-2 phase-1 and phase-2 allowed 5 characters per realm. This will be updated to 10 characters on May 1, 2025.^[179]

Progression pathways in Ashes of Creation are per-character.^[180]^[181]

Storage space is shared between characters on the same account.^[182]^[180]^[183]^[184]
- Gear will be able to be transferred between characters on the same account.^[182]^[180]^[183]^[184]
- Transfer of resources and materials may only be possible via player housing storage, which is localized to a particular house.^[183]

Characters on the same account are able to share player housing, including furniture and freehold workstations.^[180]

Cosmetics can be reassigned to characters within an account, with a potential cooldown period.^[185]^[186]^[187]

Alts within a single account may have different professions.^[188]

Item rarities

Item rarities in Ashes of Creation.

Legendary items

There is a small RNG chance of looting rare and legendary items or crafting materials from mobs based on the level, status and type of mob. This also applies to harvesting resources with a gathering profession.^[196]

There is a much higher chance that materials and unique recipes are dropped that can be used to craft items of equitable value.^[197]^[198]^[199]
Legendary equipment is only dropped by Legendary world bosses.^[200]
- Legendary equipment will have a roughly 6-12% improvement in base stats, subject to testing and balancing.^[201]

At each stage from Gatherer to Processor to Crafter you are required to have certain prerequisites before those elite types of materials can be essentially gathered, processed, or crafted.^[198] – Steven Sharif

Gatherers must have high quality tools to gather rare resources.^[198]
Processors must have high tier processing buildings on their freehold to produce rare materials.^[198]
Crafters must also satisfy certain prerequisites to craft legendary equipment.^[198]

The amount of effort needed and interdependencies across the different types of players – between raiders and PvPers and crafters and even role players and the taverns and businesses: the processors and gatherers – all of those systems will likely have a component that lends toward creating or crafting that legendary item... We want to stay away from the highly RNGd system, and instead take our multiple progression paths that we are offering the players and put the construction components for achieving these legendary items within them so it encourages communities to work together because it's going to be difficult for just one person by themselves to gather everything. Not to say that they couldn't in an economic sense, by buying those components, that's possible. But achieving them from a time investment standpoint we want it to be considerably less RNG focussed.^[199] – Steven Sharif

Certain legendary items may be limited to one per server realm at any given time.^[202]^[203]

If the player character leaves the server then the item will become available for acquisition through whatever means it was acquired previously.^[202]

There are absolutely legendary items and they're not items that are attained easily nor are they granted out in a volume. There might even be items that are single items that will exist on the server realm at any given time.^[203]

A legendary weapon is easily distinguished by its visual appearance.^[199]

It will be a very ornate and detailed weapon, more so than any other weapon or piece of equipment in the game. It will also include some awesome looking effects that won't too gaudy, they won't be too bright and shiny so that it doesn't look good, but they will be subtle and people will notice it and know wow that guy has this weapon.^[199] – Steven Sharif

Legendary items are not intended to be temporary.^[204]

A notable exception to this is Flying mounts.^[205]

The fact there is only one of them... or very very few of them depending on what it is. I think that in and of itself is a balance component right and you need to make sure that the players who are striving for those legendary things and who are devoting the time energy, resources in order to achieve them are accurately rewarded... We do not intend on having legendary items that are temporary.^[204] – Steven Sharif

Some of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.

Discovery of legendary items will unlock further chapters of the Lore.^[206]