The Krosmonote 2022 brought many new features for all Ankama games including Dofus. The MMO has a new class, which the editorial staff has been able to test from all angles. After the details of the spells and a little reflection, what are the Forgellances worth?
This class version comes from a playtest proposed by Ankama during the Krosmonote
DOFUS: We tested the Forgelance, what does the new class do?
Forgelance Legacy is more of an order. According to Ankama’s description, these are twelve people who come together around a goal: to change the destiny of the Eliocalypse. The latter use and are based around a great divine spear, which appeared mysteriously 1000 years ago, and gave their affection to this type of weapon.
There is a slight “retcon” of certain characters, such as Ilyzaelle or the Knight of Astrub, thus becoming Forgellances. Retroactively, they become because very similar. It’s as if the new class didn’t appear all at once. In addition, other events arriving with the Dofus 2.66 update will detail this point.
It’s a good way to give interest to the Legacy of the Forgellance. By coupling this with a good transmedia with the Lance Dur series and its derivatives, we feel a great desire to relaunch the production of classes on the Dofus side. This feeling is all the more felt as the Forgelance is exclusive to the 2 PC version; Wakfu and Touch contenting themselves with big extensions at the end of the year.
Forgelance gameplay on Dofus
A big surprise does not come from the fact that the Forgelance uses its spear, but that it acts as a summoning class. In a way, he is a Paladin in a certain “macro” vision of his game design. Like an Iop, he acts as a group leader and guides his team through combat with two actions. The first is the pose of the Immortal Spear and the second by its withdrawal. All his spells act in combo to take advantage of the remote zone, get closer and enter the fray, or on the contrary withdraw while protecting his allies in passing.
The Forgelance offers many combos between its spells to manage the placement of the spear and entities both in melee and at a distance. Its raw damage is normal but with many options for maximizing it in area and through spell usage optimizations. The grip is quite rough while being intuitive, respecting the logic of a 2 or 3 star class.
As a reminder, the class falls into the “Damage – Placement – Protection” categories. It respects them rather well with good variants and consistent effects. Thus, since it is about “Protection”, there is no drift in “Tanking” with penalties for flight, tackle, AP or MP.
The concept of the spear is much closer to the Xelor’s Synchro control with much more freedom. All this is in addition to an Armed/Disarmed state system close to the Pandawa, even taking over the damage reduction. Otherwise, some new mechanics are to be found and especially exclusive areas, rectangle, arrow and more. The animations are also a thousand miles from what is currently present in the game.
“A priori” balancing
In terms of ranks and low-level progression, we couldn’t have a concrete case. Indeed, the playtest only offered characters directly 200. A priori, a problem with the spears will be felt. They will consist of the bulk of the gameplay on Incarnam and Astrub, with the player unlocking one option of each item in sequence before finding other spells. The utilities are also quite scattered, it will be necessary to follow this carefully.
For the placement of variants, the Forgelance does not suffer from a problem of the Rogue and the Pandawa with utility options as a variant of elemental spells. Its options are very varied, allowed by the presence of 28 spells per path and 16 to complete. Some choices will be very hard (Galantry vs. Valkyr’s Embrace) while others will be more expeditious, depending on your game mode (Knight vs. Iron Prelude).
More generally, the spells of the class send a good punch. If we also accumulate the natural passive of the Armed state, the Forgelance can tank for quite a long time, especially if a support helps it. On the other hand, we will agree with other players, like Sapeuh, on the lack of damage at first sight. There is no single spell that really holds the whole gameplay together and comes out on top of all the others. Focusing an entity will be more difficult and there will be a very strong dependence on combos, even more so than the Huppermage who still prides himself on options that can be used “alone” (eg: Elemental Drain).
In any case, the Forgelance is playable both in teams and solo. It has good felt power, especially in single element. By the nature of its combos, the multi will be less effective and you will benefit much more from dual-element modes. His paths are all quite unique without falling into the clichéd “path of MP removal, healing, tanking, etc.” “. The decorrelation of key effects on utilities is particularly appreciated here.
Our conclusion on Dofus Forgelance Legacy
The overview given by Ankama during Krosmonote 2022 is reassuring. The Forgelance worthily joins the other Dofus classes and offers fresh gameplay. It has a clearly identifiable design, quite nice and a new option in the teams. Its logic is also quite unique, currently only present in the Iop. It’s a very good thing to observe and even if there are some inconsistencies, we will retain a good balance in general. Special mention to the animations which proudly fight against the engine of the game, the Forgelance dynamically drawing its weapon according to its state.
It will now be a question of developing the class via the beta returns of update 2.66, which should arrive in November.