Franco Abrina
While the global release of Throne and Liberty is still a few months away, the Korean server has just put out a massive update that might drastically change the current meta. We won’t be teaching you how to get an account for the Korean server as it involves the grey market, but if you have managed to do so, here is a quick overview of what to expect with this latest patch.
Major Combat Update & Skill Specializations Guide
In a nutshell, the Korean version of the game just introduced a new skill specializations system that not only potentially changes how some abilities work, but it also introduces what are essentially entirely new skills to the game.
If you are reading this after playing the very short global open beta around a week ago, scrap everything you know about the combat as this will obviously apply to the global release that is coming in a few months too.
New builds and a likely revamped meta will be popping up soon as KR players experiment with all the stuff that was added recently.
What Are Skill Specializations?
Before we dive into the specializations, it is worth noting that most skills now have their full functionality even at the base level. This means that you no longer have to upgrade them to unlock certain additional effects.
You will still need to level up your skills to boost their effectiveness, but aside from that, you basically have all of the significant effects unlocked right off the bat. A lot of skills were also changed to simply feel better or even make them more viable in certain situations.
New Specialization System
When you first reach level 25, you will gain access to the new skill specialization system. There, you will be allocating points in order to activate various buffs for individual abilities, or even unlock entirely new skills in their place.
The skill specialization points are universal. So, if you are experimenting with a new build, just keep in mind that both weapons share from the same pool of points. Thankfully, resetting is free, so you can change up your equipped specializations at your leisure.
This basically adds a lot of depth to how players will be setting up their builds, and it will take quite a lot of time before people can fully figure out the best synergies considering the fact that there are a ton of potential weapon combinations and new skills for each to keep in mind.
For example, the Inject Venom skill for daggers can now be turned into Lightning Infusion. This is an entirely new ability that revolves around the thunderclouds status instead of poison. This obviously synergizes with other new lightning abilities that you can unlock through specializations.
We won’t go into any more detail here as it is a lot to take in, and you will just have to experiment with all the new features yourself to see what’s new with your weapons of choice.
Again, resetting specializations is free, and since this is confirmed to be coming with the global launch as well, you can stand in front of the combat dummies and keep on experimenting with all the skill variants all you want until you figure out your build.
In addition to all these changes potentially flipping the current meta on its head, the new visual effects introduced by these specialized abilities will also make combat a little more visually appealing and just generally satisfying to participate in.
Zerg vs zerg fights will still be a complete mess in that regard, though, if not worse now. You might have to turn down your graphics settings if you are more into large scale PVP, as the majority of the new skills are very heavy on the particle effects.
And that is pretty much everything you need to know about the new specialization system added in the latest patch of the KR version of the game. While you are still waiting for the global version to release, check out our best weapon tier list for Throne and Liberty, though keep in mind that this was made before the major update that was just released.
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