Balance (abilities.yml)

Every balance number in the plugin lives in abilities.yml: cooldowns, damage, ranges, durations, and drop odds. Nothing balance-related is hardcoded, so if you think an ability is too strong or too weak, this is the only file you need. Apply changes with /ascend reload or a restart.

This page explains the file's structure rather than listing every number; the file itself is heavily commented, and each key has a short explanation right above it.

The scaling block

Abilities grow stronger as they level up. The scaling block controls how fast:

scaling:
  cooldown-reduction-per-level: 0.10
  potency-increase-per-level: 0.15

Level 1 is always the base value written in the file. The comments in the file mark which values "scale with level": those are things like damage, durations, and radii. A value marked as scaling gets the potency increase applied at higher levels; cooldowns always get the reduction.

The secondary block

Secondary abilities are the ones players receive at random on first join. The block starts with a shared setting, then one entry per ability:

Each secondary entry (luck, leap, hydro, stealth, might) has the shared keys from the table further down, plus its own ability-specific keys. The weight key is special to secondaries: it sets the relative chance of that ability being picked on first join or on a reroll (higher means more likely).

Here is the leap entry in full, with what each line does:

leap:
  enabled: true               # Turn the ability off entirely with false.
  display-material: RABBIT_FOOT  # The item shown for this ability in menus.
  weight: 1.0                 # Relative first-join / reroll odds (higher = more likely).
  cooldown-seconds: 120       # Base cooldown at level 1.
  dash-distance: 12           # How far the dash travels, in blocks (scales with level).
  dash-power-per-block: 0.15  # Converts dash distance into launch speed.
  min-launch-y: 0.4           # Minimum upward kick when dashing off the ground.
  slow-falling-seconds: 3     # Slow falling granted right after the dash.
  fall-damage-immune: true    # Passive: take no fall damage.
  mace-smash-multiplier: 1.5  # Passive: multiply mace smash-attack damage by this.
  mace-smash-min-fall: 1.5    # Minimum fall (blocks) for a mace hit to count as a smash.

The primary block

Primary abilities are the craftable ones (see Crafting and Custom Recipes). The block has two shared settings, then one entry per ability (blood, phase, flame, thunder, health, rotten):

The event block

Event abilities (warden, ender, wither) are rare, boss-themed powers that admins hand out for server events. They are not craftable, they occupy the primary slot while held, they never level (always full power), and they have long cooldowns. See Event Abilities for how they play.

Each event entry has the shared keys plus its own options. One worth knowing about: Ender's dragon-enabled flag. When true, the active summons a rideable Ender Dragon mount. When false, the active grants creative-style flight instead, which is the stable fallback if the dragon misbehaves on your server.

The acquisition block

The leveling block

Kill-based leveling and its anti-farm rules:

Keys shared by every ability

These cross-cutting keys appear in (almost) every ability entry:

For descriptions of what each ability actually does in game, see Abilities. If a change does not behave the way you expect, ask on Discord: discord.arrowtan.cc.