The collection of up to seven Active and up to seven Passive Abilities currently equipped on a hotbar is a Deck.
Pre-built or Pre-constructed Decks are templates of Abilities and the weapons that enable them, designed to lead new players into the game's mechanics. The names for them show a great deal of effort in imagining the nuances of the game setting, and are quite "flavorful"; decks are for more than roleplaying purposes, however; they affect game mechanics with their choice of Abilities. There are eleven unique decks for each faction, representing the various specialisations they have taken up to combat darkness—and each other.
Decks are all designed to showcase two of the game's features: One, the ability to switch, when out of combat, from one Build template to another, instantly. Secondly, the limitation of seven Active abilities, which can be used in combat, and seven Passive ones, which can not be actively used, but continuously affect the performance of the character and their abilities.
Players can create and save their own Decks with the in-game Gear Manager feature on the Character Sheet in order to make it easier to swap decks/builds without having to manually slot the abilities on the hotbars. All of these alterations can only be performed out of combat, so there is an advantage to diversity and preparedness as well as specification (or running away and coming back with a build with a more appropriate focus). The Augment system in a later Issue gave additional focus to players on their Roles in solo and particularly group play; some abilities are more focused on Damage, some on Healing, some Survivability, and some Support.
In keeping with Decks' addition of atmosphere and flavor, completing a deck will give the character a suit matching the deck's theme. It can be worn by claiming it in the Deck window, and then going to the Dressing Room on your character c. There is a partial gallery on this page, or see Category:Deck suits for all of them.
The Abilities of the decks have synergy, but be wary; the synergy of a deck’s abilities are not necessarily any greater than choosing abilities at random, and almost certainly less than customizing a set of abilities chosen carefully for their utility. Using Pre-constructed Decks should be treated with caution by players searching for maximum benefit from their abilities, who may find the nature of Abilities, such as Burst, Resource Builder or Resource Consumer, a more advantageous mark of value. On the other hand, learning from the strategies inherent in pre-constructed decks is of far greater value than tackling the whole of the massive horde of Abilities.
The negative States inflicted by Abilities on enemies come in pairs for each weapon type, and some of the Decks pair weapons with the same State-pairs, reducing the states which can be inflicted. For example, Hammer can only inflict Impaired and Weakened, and so it is with Chaos Magic as well. Yet three Decks, one for each faction, have this weapon combination: Templars' Warlock, Warlord of the Dragons, and the Illuminati's Illusionist. None of the Deck templates pair, for example, Hammer with Assault Rifle, which have complimentary Group A and Group B States. There are 36 possible combinations of weapons, and only ten can inflict all four States. There are 33 Decks (11 for each Faction), but only three of them can inflict all four States with their weapon combinations: Dragons' Assassin, and Templars' Gladiator and Paladin.
Additionally, only active abilities are limited by the weapon currently in use. Any passive ability may be equipped, regardless of what weapons are equipped, so a custom deck can make use of abilities from outside their normal weapon, let alone a prefabricated and frankly, in game mechanics terms, arbitrarily designed deck.
Pre-constructed Decks[]
There are pre-built (or perhaps Designer or Developer decks, as they are created by the game's designers for the players) Decks available. These suggest build paths, synergistic ability combinations, and Ability Point allocation. They can be seen in the Ability Wheel (typically shortcut key "N") and looking to the left of the wheel. There are nine "Starter Decks", which use only Abilities from the inner portion of the Ability Wheel. Additionally, each faction has 11 or 12 pre-built decks, that are different from the other factions, and a meant to give the character the same "flavor" as their faction.
Completing a deck awards 15,500 Experience as well as a clothing/costume reward.
Starter Decks[]
Punisher Starter Deck
The nine Starter Decks differ from Pre-Built Decks in that they only use Tier One abilities, meaning that no Ability in a Starter Deck will ever cost more than 7 Ability Points (AP). Even more so than the Pre-constructed, they serve as both goal and means, allowing new players to just get in there and have fun, and learn and advance as they perform and gain experience, rather than purely researching to gain a strategic advantage, out of game. Each Society (Faction) has access to the same ten Starter decks, and there is no variation between two characters of different Societies using the same deck. For example, a Templar using a Punisher Starter Deck has the same combination of Abilities as an Dragon using the Punisher deck.
As with other pre-Built decks, players earns an achievement and a Deck-specific uniform for each Starter Deck he/she completes. The uniforms awarded by the starter deck achievements (for the most part) represent their lack of affiliation with any specific Secret Society, being 'civilian' outfits in faction-neutral colours.
Some players, in order to acquire Tier 2 abilities in two weapons, will complete a Starter Deck automatically, as learning all of the Tier 1 abilities is required to reach Tier 2. However, the nine Starter Decks only represent a small part of the 36 potential weapon combinations.
Cage Master, Champion, Commando, Enforcer, Haruspex, Maverick, Polariser, Punisher, Trickster
Click to view high resolution image
The nine Starter Decks and their corresponding weapons are:
- Cage Master - (Fists and Blood Magic)
- Champion - (Blades and Fists)
- Commando - (Assault Rifle and Shotgun)
- Enforcer - (Shotgun and Chaos)
- Haruspex - (Blood Magic and Elementalism)
- Maverick - (Pistols and Blades)
- Polariser - (Pistols and Elementalism)
- Punisher - (Hammer and Assault Rifle)
- Trickster - (Chaos and Fists)
Faction Decks[]
Only the clothing and XP rewards for completing a faction deck is restricted to that faction.
Dragon Decks[]
- Mostly weapon pairs from the Group A and Group C weapons, that have Afflicted in common, but also Hindered and Impaired, respectively.
See Dragon#Decks for the other gender's pictures for these Decks:
Illuminati Decks[]
See Illuminati#Decks for the other gender's pictures for these Decks:
Templar Decks[]
See Templars#Decks for the other gender's pictures for these Decks:
Roles[]
The Augment system in a later Update gave additional focus to players on their Roles in solo and particularly group play; some abilities are more focused on Damage, some on Healing, some Survivability, and some Support.
To further analyze the roles of decks, it is necessary to first note the nature of Combat itself, or the abilities of individual Weapons and then their combinations. Even the latter are combinations:
Melee
+ Fists - Damage and Healing
= Blades - Damage and Survivability
= Hammers - Damage and Survivability
Ranged
^ Pistols - Damage and Support
^ Shotguns - Damage and Support
+ Assault Rife - Damage and Healing
Magic
^ Elementalism - Damage and Support
+ Blood Magic - Damage and Healing
= Chaos Magic - Damage and Survivability
Damage[]
See Damage
Healing[]
See Healing
Survivability[]
See Survivability
Support[]
See Support