Cabal 2 Online Review

CABAL II is an action-MMO with fluid, skill-based combat that offers the genuine MMO experience that made the genre so popular. With classic classes such as the Priest, Wizard, Warrior, as well as new takes like the Force Shielder and Force Blader and Force Archer, the combat of Cabal 2 takes center stage. Fight in massive PVP battlefields, across large gorgeous open zones, and in intense group dungeons that tell the story of the world.

Trailer :

CHARACTER CREATION:

The character creation in CABAL II is pretty well done. It’s nothing you’ve never seen before, but there’s still lots of options and sliders to work with, so there’s a possibility to create a very nice and unique character. It doesn’t go to the extremes a lot, limiting you to creating a normal, adult human character, but if you have a thing for the blue skinned characters out of Avatar, you can actually do that too, granted you will be hated by every normal person playing the game. I do wish there would be a bit more hair options for male characters, but I’m guessing more options in general will be added in time anyway. One thing many people will probably have a gripe with, is that character classes are gender bound, and also in a very limited way. Ranged classes are female, and melee classes male, so if you like playing melee characters but want them to be female, you’re out of luck. We are still hoping that they will eventually implement a gender choice, but at this point, it’s probably not going to happen anymore.

CLASSES:

The game includes 6 classes: Warrior, Wizard, Priest, Force Archer, Force Blader, Force Shielder. Therefore, pretty much standard CABAL Online classes, with the exception of Priest, the new healer class, who has taken the place of Blader. As Blader was the favorite class of many CABAL players (arguably the most popular class in the game) they were very disappointed to find out it was removed from the sequel. I happen to be one of these people as well, as I enjoyed playing Blader a lot in the original and found it to be the most fun and diverse class. Plus, who doesn’t like a lightning-fast badass with 2 blades?! Personal disappointments aside however, as you may notice, the inclusion of a real healer class also means that the developers have taken a more traditional MMORPG approach on the classes, dividing them into DPS/TANK/HEAL. Even though it is a very traditional format and does work in other games, I find it very unnecessary as the classes were perfect the way they were in the first game, and it’s also a point that made the game stand out from all the rest. All classes excelled at something different, but were still good enough to do everything else as well. There was no favoritism and you could run dungeons with whatever class formations were available. Obviously having an FA for heals and a WI for sp was preferred, but it was a convenience choice, not a necessity. In CABAL II however, FS has been boosted a lot to be one hell of a tank, and Priest does all the healing. The rest of the classes are simply classified as DPS. This means 1 tank, 1 healer, 4 DPS. If you’re an MMO player, you can already see the problem here. Finding a good group in this game will present a challenge. Anyway, about the classes themselves – they’re very varied from play-style, so there should be something for everyone here.

Warrior 

Warrior – Wielding a giant 2-handed sword, their attack speed is very slow. Their dps is rather average, but defense slightly higher than other DPS classes, due to their heavy armor. They tend to eat hits rather than dodge them like other classes, because they are too slow and locked in their skill animations, making them unable to dash away. It’s mostly okay as they can take a few hits, but they’re not invincible so the healer must be actively keeping them alive. They have great AOE options and the ability knock enemies down, which is very useful in dungeons specifically as it cancels enemy charge attacks.

Wizard

Wizard – The typical glass cannon class. Long range, high DPS, great AOE options, but very squishy. They wear light armor and a use a Staff to amplify their magic. Wizards get more avoidance skills than other classes, and have to constantly utilize them to stay at a distance from the enemy. They can also inflict several status effects, such as freeze, which either slows or stops enemies.

Force Archer

Force Archer – A ranged DPS class with a ton of utility skills. Their DPS is average but they bring lots of useful status effects and AOE’s to the field. They wear leather armor and a bow. Even though they have slightly higher defense than light armor classes, they must still be careful, and to do that they have several avoidance skills, such as fade step.

Force Blader

Force Blader – An interesting blend of melee and long range gameplay. They use a blade, and leather armor. Their gameplay is rather unique, fast and fun, and in CABAL 2 tends to be a bit more assassin-ish with the inclusion of Backstab. Their DPS is quite good, and mostly comes from the melee side of their skills. This makes them a difficult class to play in groups however, due to their low defense. They have to retreat often and resort to using ranged skills, in order to regenerate.

Force Shielder

Force Shielder – The unparalelled tank of CABAL 2. They use heavy armor, a blade, and a shield. Their defense is as strong as a rock, and DPS slightly below average. They have several aggro skills, defense & HP boosts and even a small healing skill, making them a perfect tank for groups. In solo play, they’re probably the most capable class in the game, being able to do almost anything without needing help. I would personally say that Force Shielder’s are a bit overpowered at this point, and I’m eagerly wondering what the developers will do to balance it out.

Priest

Priest – The new healing class of CABAL. Provides useful buffs and much necessary healing to the group. They can also resurrect fallen players. Priests aren’t just for group play though, and can manage themselves completely fine solo. Ironically, they may out-damage DPS classes at times. They wear light armor making them very squishy, and a book. They don’t have as much avoidance options as Wizards do, which means they have to be extra careful on the battlefield.

COMBO SYSTEM:

CABAL II swaps out the combo bar for a bit more of an active combo system. You no longer need to activate combo manually which broke the flow of combat, but you can seamlessly combo as much as you want while battling by simply using skills on the right moment, in succession to each other. While using a skill, during its animation there is a small window of time when you can press another skill, and if you do so, the next skill will be combo-ed on top of the previous. They have also managed to make the system feel very natural and fluid, so players can get a hang of it rather quickly and use it to their advantage. Once you get used to the feeling of it, you always try to combo as much as you can, and its quite a fun addition to the traditional combat. The problem starts to arise however, when you realize that comboing actually has no benefits at all in this game, or at least currently doesn’t appear to. As a melee class, it also always seems to break upon switching targets, because the character often has to run to the next enemy. So once you start battling several monsters at once, combo-ing starts to feel pointless and clunky, so the player might just start to prefer button mashing. In the Korean version, as a foreign player, due to the latency the skills often lag or bug out when trying to combo precisely, which makes button mashing even more preferrable. Hopefully it will be better in the English version with less latency, and they’ve included some kind of use for the combo system by then as well.

SKILLS & COMBAT:

CABAL II continues the tradition of beautiful and flashy skills, that it’s predecessor is known for . At first glance they might not seem much, but with a level cap of 35, we haven’t really seen much and if you think back to the first skills of CABAL 1, you’ll see that they weren’t so special either. Even so, the lower level skills of CABAL II are already much better than the skills of its predecessor, and they will only continue to get bigger and better. The skill effects are nicely done and the glows affect the environment, which is something that I personally find important, as it makes the atmosphere of the game much more believable. The character animations could occasionally use some more work as they’re not as smooth as they were in the first game, but there is still time to remedy this, and compared to most other games out there, they’re still on another level entirely.

CABAL II tries to make combat a little more tactical by introducting casting skills, targeted area skills and putting a bigger emphasis on conditions and elements. Most classes also have some sort of unique systems in place, where the player has to manage certain buffs or skills to be able to use other skills. I believe I should mention the Chain system as well, which is essentially just a way to save space on your skillbars and nothing special aside from that. Many people seem to mistaken it for some kind of a combo mechanic, so I have to clear this up though. ESTsoft wanted to retain the 2-bar gameplay of CABAL 1, but that would’ve meant that characters could only have a very limited set of skills. Thus, they introduced the chain system, which works exactly the same way as in Aion, so if you’ve played that, you should know what it is. Basically you have chain starter skills, and once you use one, the next chain skill pops up on the screen which can be used with the same button as the starter skill. This way you don’t need to place 100 different skills on your bar, and you’re able to use several skills with just 1 button. For example, Force Bladers main melee dps chain consists of 4 skills: [Dark Slash -> Aerial Twist -> Force Stab -> Force Assault]. Dark Slash is the chain starter, so if you place it to quickslot 3, you will be able to use the whole chain of 4 skills simply by pressing 3, 3, 3, 3. The chains in CABAL II are pre-set and can’t be changed. Chain length generally varies from 2-4.

Thanks For Reading :)
Used media by: Exile, Cabal 2 KR.