Developers Pearl Abyss have shown off a new combat feature for their MMO Black Desert—wave-linking battle formation skills.
The skill has other players linking themselves to one character who’s then able to perform a much more powerful version of some of their skills. It’s part of the battle formation system. The warrior’s slash turns into a sonic wave-style attack, for example, while the sorceress chucks a big ball of negative energy.
It even appears it’s possible to link back to each other to form a protective sort of shield barrier against attacks from foes. This is based on the shape of the laser linking light show.
Considering the real-time combat action of the game, this sort of “cheering the guys on” idea sounds pretty neat, but think about how it might work say, in raids. Boss about to smash the main tank into mush? Link and shield up. Or link for massive bonus damage when the time is right. One of the big bugbears of online games is that parties needed the “Holy Trinity”–Tank, Healer, Damage dealer. Wave-linking might be an innovative way to get around that limitation.
We’re not sure if this is an available feature in player-versus-player (that might be overpowered), or if there’s a limit to the number of people who can be linked. It seems group sizes are limited to around four party members total, with a total link of four for now.
Black Desert’s next closed beta is expected to start from April 22nd and will last for three weeks on PC.
