The guide › Combining

Combining

Take what you know and make something new. Put a sword and a school of fire together and you hold a blade that burns. Put frost, fire and lightning together and you hold a storm that leaps from foe to foe. Every combination is read from what went in, so the skill you make is yours: shaped by the way you play, named for what it does, and grown by using it.

What combining is

Every skill, spell and ability you have can go into a combination. Put in two to 5 of them, each at level 5 or more, and the game reads them: what family each belongs to (a weapon, a school of harm, healing, a guard, shaping, a craft), which elements they carry, and how much power they bring. From that it builds a new skill with an ability of its own. It goes into your spellbook (P) and onto your bar, and it levels and evolves like any other skill.

How to combine

1. Open the combine window with J (Esc → Keys & presets shows yours). It lists your skills, then your spells and abilities.
2. Pick two to 5. Each must be level 5 or more (for a spell or ability, its skill's level). A spell cannot go in with its own school, and nothing can be picked twice.
3. Read the promise. Under your picks the window says what you will make (“This will be an arc that stuns.”), the tier, how long the ritual takes, and how unstable the attempt is.
4. Press Combine and hold still. The ritual takes 3 to 6 seconds and costs 10% of your maximum mana. You cannot start one in a fight.
5. Use it. “You have created …!” Your new skill starts at half the average level of what went in (two level-40 skills give a level-20 skill; never above 50), so it is useful from the first cast.

What decides the result

First the game picks the result's shape: what kind of thing it is. Then it fits the effects to that shape. There are nine:

How the shape is chosen

Each input belongs to a family, and each family brings a share of the combination's power. The first rule that fits wins:

1. A named recipe matched: its own shape (see below).
2. Weapon skills bring 40% or more of the power: a weapon strike (a shot if the bow, crossbow or thrown weapon weighs more). Any magic in it rides on the blow, so it hits as fire, ice or lightning.
3. Stone Shaping brings a third or more: a zone if an element went in with it (burning ground, mud, frost), otherwise a wall or pillar.
4. Guards (Defense, Block, the hardenings and resistances, Meditation) bring half or more: a ward.
5. Gathering and crafting bring half or more, and no harmful magic went in: a knack.
6. More healing than harm went in: a mend. On an exact tie the reaction decides: a healing reaction (Sacred Spring, Galvanic Bloom, Living Stone…) makes a mend, any other a spell.
7. Shadow and stone met (Shadowstone), or only stealth holds the set together: a veil.
8. Anything else is a spell: an arc if lightning leads or the reaction chains, a fan if a fan spell went in or air leads something wide, a burst if the reaction or an input spreads, otherwise a bolt.

A spell or ability counts as what it does, not only its school: Tide Mend is a healing input although Water Magic is a school of harm. A combined skill put back in counts as its own shape.

What each element and weapon adds

Whatever leads the result gives it its damage type and, if no reaction took the place, a twist of its own:

In a ward each guard brings its own part: Defense cuts the damage you take (15 to 30% by tier), Block adds a barrier that soaks 5 to 16% of your health, Meditation brings your mana and stamina back 30 to 60% faster, a hardening or resistance cuts that one kind of damage by 20 to 50%, and Stun Resistance makes stuns and knockdowns 30 to 60% shorter.

With weapons and no element, the leading weapon names the blow (a Slash, a Cleave, a Thrust…) and the next one gives the twist. All of one element (three fire spells, say) makes a pure result: no reaction, but 15% more power and a name of its own. More elements than a result has room for are not wasted: each adds 5% power.

Elements and reactions

When two elements meet they react, and the reaction names the result and adds a twist of its own. At Simple the twist takes the second place; from Compound it comes on top of everything else, and from Prestige at full strength. clash marks elements at odds with each other: they still react, but the attempt is 10% more unstable for each such pair.

No reaction matches that.

Blood and Soul magic are not in the world yet; their reactions are waiting for them.

Power and tiers

Every input adds to the combination's power: a skill below level 50 adds its level, from 50 it adds 1.2 times its level, and from 80 one and a half times. A spell or ability weighs as its skill does, and 10% more for each rank it has reached. A Transcended skill weighs three times the top level. If one input outweighs another more than three times over, the two are mismatched and the total is cut by 15%. Below a power of 30 the combination fizzles. Above it, the power sets the tier:

Every result is held to the same worth for its tier, whatever its shape, so no shape is the “right answer”: a ward is as good a choice as a fireball. A combined skill is built to be better than the abilities it came from, so giving two skills up is worth it, and it gets no pass on the rules for control: at most one hard control (stun, root or knockdown) each, elites take half, bosses shrug it off.

The window's promise, and how unstable it is

Before you press anything, the window tells you the truth. The promise line says what you will make, in plain words: “This will be a weapon shot that silences.” “This will be a mend round you that heals over time.” “This will be binding ground that roots.” Beside it is the instability: the chance that a successful combination lashes back. It is the very number the server rolls against, never more.

The ritual

Combining is not a click, it is a ritual. When you press Combine, the mana is spent and your character draws the power in, hands gathered, on the cast bar: 3 seconds for Simple, 4 for Compound, 5 for Prestige and 6 for Apex. A blow, a step away or a stun breaks it. So find a quiet place: you cannot begin in a fight, and a wolf at your back will cost you the mana.

When it goes wrong

Combining can fail, and it is meant to feel fair: every risk is shown before you commit, Synthesis makes you better at it, and losing your skills only ever happens when you have said yes three times.

Named recipes

A few pairs of skills (not spells) make something the world already has a name for: a recipe, with a shape and an ability of its own. Put in exactly the two skills and nothing else, and the window names it (“a known combination”). Here is what each one does, and a hint at what goes in; the finding is yours.

A recipe answers only to its own two skills. Add a third, or a spell, and the game makes something new from what you gave it instead.

What you can make: examples

Real results from the game's own engine, with the numbers at the made skill's level 20 (damage and healing grow with the skill's level; times and percentages stay). The instability is shown at Synthesis 0, 25 and 50.

Your combined skill grows

A made skill is a skill like any other. It levels as you use its ability, and its damage and healing grow with it. It carries the level bonuses of the skills it came from at 60% of their pace (sword damage and stamina from Swordfighting, cheaper spells from a school). It can be combined again. And it has an evolution path of its own, Fusion, counted in uses of its ability; each step also waits for the skill's level. What a step gives depends on what the skill is:

Perfected also gives the Fusion tag, for the combinations still to come.

It also keeps the first evolution path of each of its first two parents, so a fusion of sword and fire still grows with sword kills and fire casts. Open them all with V.

Tips

• Start small. Two skills at about level 15 reach Simple, and a Simple combination is always steady. It also starts your Synthesis.
• Grow Synthesis before you reach. Compound is steady from Synthesis 25, Prestige from 50, Apex from 75. Reaching higher is allowed, just riskier.
• Read the line, then the colour. If the promise is not what you want, swap one input and read again; it costs nothing to look.
• Mind the clashes. Fire with Ice or Water, Air with Stone, Lightning with Water: each pair adds 10% instability. A third element that does not clash is often the better pick.
• Spells are the cheap way in. A spell you put in is kept (back to Novice), while a skill is used up. A ranked spell also weighs more.
• One element, more power. Three fire inputs make a pure result: no reaction, but 15% stronger.
• Want a weapon blow? Let the weapon skills bring at least 40% of the power. Want a ward? Guards at half or more.
• Combine somewhere quiet. In town, or with the area cleared: the ritual breaks on a blow or a step, and you need 10% of your mana to begin.
• Keep your Transcended skills for the end. Apex needs one, and three strong inputs beside it.
• Shadow and Life will break. The window says so in red, and asks three times. Only say yes if you mean it.

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