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Saying it has rng because it has loot drops is incredibly disingenuous when the question was regarding battle mechanics. It has no rng battle mechanics. Also 'ARPG'? How is this any different from an mmo? Pvp, pve, dungeons, gear, abilities...
This started by a discussion of 'if there are fighting games that allow you to make your own build'. The answer was yes.
Absolver's combat does not contain RNG mechanics beyond the standard Rock Paper Scissors moment-to-moment interactions that have been brought up other times. It is a fighting game. A large part of why it is not popular is that it is an extremely complicated fighting game made by an indie studio, and offers little else.
The gear in Absolver serves the exact same purpose as gear or choices in a MOBA or similar. MOBAs thrive on builds, and do not need RNG. You can argue that 'therefore if you don't have enough RNG you have made a MOBA', but there is no good argument why a persistent world MMO that incorporates Action Combat should not be more like a MOBA when that Action Combat is in play.
In fact, if this is
not
Intrepid's intention, they probably should let Action Combat hopefuls know that as soon as possible, because that's what most of them seem to be expecting.
"Your build is about making your personal playstyle stronger."
Easy. RNG not required.
So let's establish some things before any random nonsense about Absolver comes up, as it probably is not clear to non-fans of it.
1. It is a fighting game first. Without question. You get some stats and levels, but their influence on your primary combat ability is probably less than 30%. Same variance as fighting games in general.
2. The gear serves only the purpose of shifting around your performance. The higher skill 'boxers' in Absolver wear no gear because wearing gear makes them slower and their style works based on speed. Most of the gear is practically cosmetic (in that the difference between Uncommon and Super Rare is small, and it is for min-maxing), so you care very little whether you get 'Rare' gear quickly.
3. There is no need for RNG outside of that which is emergent from the players' decisions, because ... it's a fighting game, that's how those work 99% of the time.
Some people want their own physical skill to matter, some people want their skill at building their character to matter and explicitly don't want to need as much physical skill.
But 'wanting physical skill to matter' does not invalidate skill at making builds, effects of gear, or cause repetitive rotations to happen. And since Intrepid has, for the time being, offered Action Combat, this is good, because it means that they can provide what they offered with minimum or nearly no RNG, for those who prefer that.