I think we should have a discussion about the style of combat in the game - specifically how the abilities are handled.

We know that we are limited to six skills hotkeyed - which is a good thing because it advocates careful planning and avoids the tradition of having untouched abilities on screen and keyed. However, this may be difficult to implement - because it could advocated a "mother of all combinations" - forcing you down a particular path. I would quite like to see it handled as follows.

(I think the classes should be fairly basic to start: Warrior, Thief, Mage, Battlemage, Nightblade, Rogue)

Warrior classes:

Their six hot keyed abilities can be chose as follows (assuming heavy and light attack don't count):

STAMINA GOVERNED SKILLS X2 - (Agressive (e,g. Sword sweep), Passive (shield wall)

HEALTH GOVERNED SKILLS X3 - (Passive (e.g. AOE buff And self buff)

MAGIKA GOVERNED SKILLS X1 - (Passive (e.g. Basic self heal in combat (akin to healing in Skyrim.)) or a basic aggressive magic spell (flames))

Thief Classes:

STAMINA GOVERNED SKILLS X2 (Agressive (e.g. Dagger flurry), Passive (e.g. Stun/disarm enemy)

HEALTH GOVERNED SKILLS X3 ( Passive (e.g. Reach into an enemies' inventory and steal a health potion, Reave - take health and convert it into stamina to fuel a flurry)

MAGIKA x1 - (Passive - Invisibilty)

Mage Classes:

MAGICKA GOVERENED SKILLS x6 - (2x aggressive (e.g. fireball and flames) 2x Passive (e.g. Stone flesh, Paralyse. 2x Utility - e.g. group heal AOE)

Nightblade:

STAMINA x 2: (Agressive thief skills)

MAGICKA x4: ( Illusion X2 - Alteration x2)

Spellsword:

STAMINA X 3 (2x aggressive warrior skills + 1 passive)

Magicka x 3: (2x Restoration, 1x Destruction)

Rogue;

Stamina X3 ( 1x Warrior aggressive (sword flurry), 1x Thief aggressive and 1x passive from either)

Magicka X2

Health x1

In other words, the abilities that you can choose are resticted to a certain amount from each attribute and skill. This ensure people don't dump the most overpowered from each category into 1 build - at the same time keeping combat fresh and allowing replayability.

In terms of how these'll be mapped into the keyboard and mouse - I'd quite like:

Heavy attack - Hold Mouse 2
Light attack - Tap mouse 2

Powers - 1 through 6

Those are simply my thoughts - anyone feel differently.