Fury Beta preview

Pitting everyone against everyone else in ‘winner-takes-all’, Bloodbath is all about killing as many people as possible within the time limit, while balancing the need to stay alive. The FPS shades become apparent when you realise that the maps are littered not only with spring-boards and teleporters that reek of Quake, but also tokens that bestow wide ranging temporary abilities. This balances things nicely, lending just as much importance to scouting the map for token spawn points, as remembering what buffs, debuffs and abilities to use at any given time. Nothing ruins an opponent wielding fire spells quicker than a 'fire mirror' token which absorbs and reflects fire damage back on the caster.

Buffs before battle are an important part of a balanced Fury diet.

Our champion goes in for the ultra low blow.

Even the use of abilities has been carefully calculated to promote a fresh strategic edge to PVP action. Every effect you’re capable of producing relies on ‘charges’ rather than a finite pool of mana or power. These charges are either generated or taken away from you as you use different abilities, leaving you to juggle the generation and consumption of charges through spell combinations. You don't fully appreciate the amount of forethought involved in attack combinations until you're in the midst of fighting and realise you can't use your heavy damage capabilities, as you haven't generated enough charges from buffs or moderate damage effects aligned to the same element.

If you want to let loose a poison spell you might first need to cast a rejuvenation buff on your teammates or else find yourself short of nature charges. Just remember to sort out your strategies before you spawn a PVP area or end up a bauble on your opponents spearhead.

The wait for respawn, a sight you’ll see pretty often. Get used to it.

In the midst of battle and we’d give our kingdom for a water charge.