Active Abilities

Overview

On top of passive stat rewards, the skill tree grants 57 hotbar abilities across 13 skills, plus 34 triggered passives and capstones on every combat tree (91 ability assets total), six damage schools, deployables and summons, real-momentum dashes with i-frames, and Souls-style dodge counterattack.

How abilities work

1. 1

   Unlock through the skill tree

   Abilities live as ABILITY_UNLOCK rewards on tier nodes, just like any other reward. Admins can re-home an ability to a different skill or level with a single content edit.
2. 2

   Bind via /mmoabilities

   Open the bind page, drag any unlocked ability onto hotbar slot 7, 8, or 9.
3. 3

   Press hotkey to cast

   A cooldown pip appears on the HUD; your held item stays where it was (the slot snaps back automatically after a brief revert).

Every value an ability carries, cooldown, cost, damage, radius, projectile model, sound, animation, on-hit effects, XP routing, is a field on a content-pack-authorable JSON asset, not a Java constant. See Configuration for the precedence chain server owners tune through, and Content-pack authoring for how packs add or override abilities.

The 57-ability roster

Damage schools Since 1.6.0

Every damage-bearing ability step (a hit, a DOT tick, a zone, a beam) can carry an optional Cause naming a damage-cause asset. Six of those ids are the mod's damage schools: Fire and Ice are native Hytale causes; Lightning, Water, Arcane, and Void are MMO-authored sub-types of the vanilla Elemental cause. An unset or unresolvable Cause falls back to Physical silently.

The skill tree can grant permanent resistance to one school through the SCHOOL_RESIST reward type (stacks across every claimed node, survives relog and world-hop, removed on respec or a full reset). See Reward Types for the full reward-type table.

Deployables & summons Since 1.6.0

An effect chain can plant a stationary construct or call in a temporary ally instead of hitting something directly. Kills and XP earned by a deployable or summon's own attacks credit the player who cast it, not the construct.

• Sentry Turret (Archery) - plants a mechanical turret that tracks and fires on nearby enemies for 20 seconds.
• Flame Totem (Magic) - plants a totem that hurls fire at nearby enemies for a short time.
• Summoned Wolf (Archery) - calls a spectral wolf that hunts enemies for 30 seconds; it never targets a player.

Choice tiers - Pick 1 of 2

Several "Choice - Pick 1" nodes sit in the skill tree, forcing a build-shaping decision between two opposite abilities at a single level threshold. Pick one and the other locks out for that skill until you reset:

• Daggers Lv 18 - Shadowstep vs Vanish (mobility flavor)
• Magic Lv 22 - Fireball vs Ice Bolt (burst vs control)
• Archery Lv 28 - Piercing Shot vs Scatter Shot (long-range line vs short-range cone)
• Magic Lv 32 - Frost Nova vs Renewal (control AoE vs sustain)

The skill-tree page sorts tiers by level requirement so each choice node renders right between adjacent stat tiers, with a "Choice - Pick 1" header above the two ability cards.

Triggered passives - combat trees + Lv 100 capstones

On top of the 57 hotbar abilities, the mod ships 34 triggered passives and capstones across every combat tree (Swords, Daggers, Polearms, Staves, Axes, Blunt, Unarmed, Archery, Magic, Artillery, Defense):

• One triggered passive at low / mid level on each tree - fires automatically on on_hit_dealt, on_kill, or on_finisher events. Examples: Coup de Grâce (Daggers Lv 11) lands a 2× execute swing when you hit a target ≤ 25% HP; Cleaver (Axes Lv 25) detonates a 4-block ground burst on every combo finisher; Pyromaniac (Magic Lv 57) buffs your next Fireball hit.
• Two Lv 100 capstones (Pick 1 of 2) per combat tree - augment specific abilities, apply real status effects to the victim, or drop damage zones at the kill site instead of generic % multipliers. Examples: Cataclysm (Staves) makes meteor leave a 4-second burning crater; Multishot (Archery) gives every Scatter Shot pellet its own bleed; Stagger (Blunt) stuns for 0.75 s on every hit.

Plus Wind Dancer (Acrobatics Lv 67) - a passive that auto-arms a 2.5× next-hit damage buff for 4 s with a chained 1.4× follow-up when you successfully dodge an incoming hit during the perfect-dodge window. No hotbar slot, no cast - pure dodge-and-counter feel.

Since 1.5.1 DOT-stacking capstones (Riftblade, Hemorrhage, Frostbite, Pyrocaster, Endurance Strike, Multishot) no longer stack without limit. A DOT tick no longer re-triggers the combat layer by default (opt-in per ability), and reapplying the DOT now builds a small capped additive stack (an authored cap of 3-4 depending on the ability) instead.

Dodge Counterattack - Acrobatics + Defense

Time a dodge so a hit lands inside the i-frame window and your next swing hits harder. Souls-style parry-then-execute, built into the skill tree as a passive you unlock and scale per-skill.

• Generalist "+25% Dodge Counterattack" options at Acrobatics Tier 4 (Lv 30), Acrobatics Tier 6 (Lv 50), and Defense Tier 4 (Lv 30). A fully-invested generalist hits 1.75× damage on every successful dodge counter.
• Specialist tiers that only apply to a specific ability - Shadow Counterstrike (Acrobatics Tier 8, Lv 80, +50% extra when you dodge with Shadow Pounce) and Bulwark Counterstrike (Defense Tier 7, Lv 65, +50% extra on Shield Slam dodges). A Shadow Pounce specialist with full investment caps at 2.25×; a Shield Slam tank tops out at 2.0×.

The dodge timing window (50 ms by default) and how long the counterattack stays armed (750 ms) are server-tunable in mods/mmoskilltree/ability-settings.json.

Dashes - momentum + i-frames

The five DASH abilities - Leap Strike, Berserker Charge, Shield Slam, Shadow Pounce, Lumberjack Leap - write a one-shot velocity impulse that physics carries through the world, slowing on collisions and decaying with air resistance. Dashes also grant i-frames, a brief invulnerability window during the slide. Hits that connect mid-dodge are cancelled outright, and any incoming knockback is stripped.

Defaults: 200 ms for most dashes, 300 ms on Shield Slam (longest, tank-flavored), 150 ms on Shadow Pounce (briefer, assassin timing). Server owners can tune every value (VelocityHorizontal, IFrameMs) per ability via mods/mmoskilltree/ability-overrides.json, or a pack can ship its own dash-based ability outright.

Ability improvements (AbilityMods) Since 1.6.0

A quest, mastery node, dialogue option, or shop entry can grant a standalone improvement to an already-unlocked ability, distinct from ABILITY_UNLOCK. An AbilityMod targets one ability by id and carries a list of modifiers using the same grammar mastery nodes use, including ADD_STEP, which splices a whole new effect step into the target's chain instead of just tweaking a number.

{
  "Name": "Council_Arcane_Focus",
  "TargetAbility": "arcane_missiles",
  "NameKey": "abilitymod.council_arcane_focus.name",
  "DescKey": "abilitymod.council_arcane_focus.desc",
  "Modifiers": [
    { "shape": "FLAT", "key": "damage", "value": 4 },
    { "shape": "ADD_STEP", "insertAnchor": "ON_HIT", "sourceId": "council_arcane_focus",
      "stepPayload": { "Type": "ApplyEffect", "ApplyEffect": { "EffectAsset": "MMO_Slam_Slow", "DurationMs": 2000 } } }
  ]
}

Grant an AbilityMod through the unified reward model's ABILITY_MOD kind ({"type":"ABILITY_MOD","modId":"<id>"}) from a quest, dialogue, or shop reward, the same one-shot pipeline every other reward kind uses, including the offline-retry queue. For testing, /mmoability grantmod and /mmoability revokemod do the same by console command. AbilityMods are defaults < pack only, there is no owner override layer for this type yet.

NPC & mob ability casting Since 1.6.0

Non-player entities can cast from the same ability catalog through MMOSkillTreeAPI.castNpcAbility. The jar ships one demonstration of this, Draconic Arcana (dragon_arcana), an NPC-only ability with no skill-tree placement and no player unlock path. On its own the API is inert; the real consumer is MMO Mob Scaling, a separate, optional companion mod that casts abilities from the mobs it scales up. See Add-ons.

Active vs Passive labeling

Every ABILITY_UNLOCK reward in the skill tree wears a clear [ACTIVE] or [PASSIVE] tag so you can tell at a glance which abilities go on your hotbar vs. which trigger on their own. Active abilities bind to slots 7/8/9 and cast on hotkey. Passive abilities don't appear on the bind page, can't be assigned to a slot, and trigger automatically when their condition is met.

Held-weapon gating

Many abilities require the appropriate weapon category: Power Strike + Leap Strike + Rallying Cry need a sword, Whirlwind + Sunder hold an axe, Shield Bash + Shield Slam + Guardian's Call need a shield, Vampiric Strike + Shadow Pounce need daggers, Hunter's Mark + Piercing Shot + Volley need a bow. Hot-swap to the wrong weapon mid-fight and the cast aborts cleanly - no cost, no cooldown.

Two ways to cast - keyboard or inventory item

Hotkey casting on slots 7/8/9 is the default. Players who prefer mousewheel-friendly hotbar navigation can opt into inventory-item casting on the abilities page: toggle "Cast Abilities via Inventory Item" on, and three new items appear in your inventory, one per ability slot. Use an item to cast the ability bound to that slot. The items are reusable (don't get consumed), and while the mode is on, hotbar slots 7-9 work as ordinary hotbar slots. If you ever lose an item, click "Restore Missing Items" on the abilities page (15-minute cooldown).

Content-pack authoring

Every active ability and passive is a content-pack-authorable JSON asset at Server/MMOSkillTree/Abilities/<id>.json, decoded through the same codec whether it ships in the jar, a pack, or the owner overlay. A pack file with the same id overrides a jar default entirely; a variant can instead set a top-level "Parent" to inherit every leaf but the ones it overrides, rather than duplicating the whole body.

{
  "Parent": "fireball",
  "Cooldown": { "Ms": 5000 },
  "Cost": { "Stat": "MANA", "Amount": 20 }
}

See Ability authoring for the full field reference: Identity, Cooldown, Cost, XpRouting, Casting, Targeting, the effect-step vocabulary, and Presentation.

Cooldown HUD & bind page

• Cooldown HUD - pip-style cooldown bar shows your bound abilities and their remaining cooldowns. Each pip displays the ability's icon (the same one shown on the bind page) with its hotbar key above and a seconds counter below; hover to see the ability name. A subtle blue fill behind the icon drains as the cooldown ticks down. Configurable from the Admin Config menu (vertical anchor / horizontal align / X-Y offsets).
• MultipleHUD compatibility - if the MultipleHUD mod (Buuz135) is installed, the ability HUD coexists with other HUD-using mods (Coordinates HUD, Block Information, Equipment Plus HUD) instead of replacing them. Auto-detected at startup; falls back to the standard slot if not installed.
• Bind page filtering - search box (filters by name or flavor text), sort buttons (Name / Level / Skill), skill filter dropdown, category chips (Combat / Gathering / Crafting / Misc), Hide Locked toggle, empty-state messages.
• Distinct icons for every ability - each ability shows its own thematically picked Hytale item icon on the bind page.
• Toggle from anywhere - /mmohud show|hide ability hides or restores just the cooldown HUD without touching the quest tracker or other HUD panels.

Configuration

Ability bodies resolve

Commands

• Configurable damage cap - server admins can tune the pre-defense ability multiplier ceiling via mods/mmoskilltree/skill-config.json (maxPreDefenseMultiplier, default 4.0). Raise it for bigger combo numbers, lower it for tighter PvE balance.
• reward-icons.json override config - server admins can remap any reward icon. Three precedence layers: per-skill overrides (highest), per-combat-target overrides, and per-reward-type defaults. Set a value to "__DISABLED__" to suppress an icon entirely.

Ability localization

Active ability names, flavor text, and the dynamic damage/radius/duration summary are translated into the player's chosen language. Numeric values come straight from the ability's config, so balance changes propagate to every language without re-translation.