Battle Plan
Your character fights automatically. The Battle Plan is where you set the rules it follows - which skill to use, when to use it, and what to hold back.
Your gear decides how much your character can do. The Battle Plan decides whether it does the right thing at the right moment. This is the system where your skill as a player lives.
In the closed alpha
Section titled “In the closed alpha”The alpha Battle Plan is a single Balanced combat mode with one configurable parameter:
- HP Threshold - when your HP drops below X%, use the Mending Potion.
The full system below ships at launch.
Combat modes
Section titled “Combat modes”Launch.
| Mode | Behaviour |
|---|---|
| Aggressive | Prioritise damage. Use Pressure skills freely. Go for kills. |
| Balanced | The default. Splits attention between damage and survival. |
| Defensive | Prioritise staying alive. Hold burst cooldowns, lean on your Survival skill. |
| Focused | Single-target priority. Boss-killing mode. |
Configurable rules
Section titled “Configurable rules”Launch.
- Thresholds - Pressure, Survival, Momentum, and Momentum-gated Potion triggers
- Toggles - Boss-save (hold cooldowns for bosses), AoE-when-surrounded
- Skill Rules - per equipped skill: its priority, when to use it, preferred target, and what to save it for
- Override Rules - up to two bounded exceptions
- Targeting priority - which enemy to focus, and when to switch
The controls open in layers:
| Level | What opens |
|---|---|
| 10 | Posture, Pressure and AoE options |
| 28 | Skill Rules |
| 40 | Override Rules |
Momentum
Section titled “Momentum”Phase 2.
Momentum is a per-class rhythm meter. Your Pressure skill always fires; Momentum decides whether that cast is empowered. The choice you are authoring is when to spend and when to hold.
Spending has a stated payoff per class:
| Class | Spending Momentum gives |
|---|---|
| Vanguard | More Guard generation on Bastion Wave |
| Hunter | Higher critical strike chance on Blood Quarry |
| Arcanist | An extra chain target on Arc Halo |
The meter bleeds when your class triggers stop firing, so it rewards keeping the rhythm going.
The activation limit
Section titled “The activation limit”Combat allows three skill activations per character per world tick.
Potions are evaluated separately from that limit, so a potion can still fire on a tick where three skills already went off.
Potions
Section titled “Potions”At launch there is one Potion type: the Mending Potion, a reactive heal that triggers when your HP drops below your configured threshold. It heals a percentage of your maximum HP over time, then goes on cooldown.
More Potion types and a second Potion slot arrive in Phase 2.
Presets and Blueprints
Section titled “Presets and Blueprints”Phase 2.
Presets let you save different Battle Plan configurations and swap between them through Loadouts - one for farming, another for boss progression, another for The Ascent.
Build Blueprints can capture and apply the Battle Plan snapshot alongside the rest of a build. A Blueprint is a build target - a reference and shopping list - and does not transfer items. Blueprint codes are unencrypted, so community tools can read them.
Where to go next
Section titled “Where to go next”- Classes - the four skill roles your rules act on
- Combat Basics - what your character is doing each tick
- Offline Progress - your plan running while you are away