The Slammin' Update
This update allows "normal attack" -builds to be valid. If you don't want to use spells or skills you can boost your normal attacks with these new skills and combo them with existing ones.
Added
- General
- Added drawn hit impacts for each kind of blow: a slash for blades, a crush for blunt weapons and fists, a pierce for thrusts and arrows, claw marks for monsters, and a shield outline with sparks on a blocked hit.
- Added the setting "Aim area skills for me". Turned off, area skills such as Fireball and Blizzard ask for their spot instead of landing where they hit the most monsters.
- Added holy and shadow damage, which replace magic damage. Nothing resists holy damage; shadow is a full element with its own resistance, and only the Reaper resists it.
- Added Ruin: each shadow hit adds a stack that lowers every resistance by 1%, up to 20 stacks, for 5 turns.
- Items
- Added holy damage affixes: Pious, Hallowed, Sacred and Divine.
- Added shadow damage, shadow skill damage, shadow resistance and shadow piercing affixes.
- Added the Onyx, a shadow gem that gives life in body armor.
- Added Keep Your Distance, a unique long bow: Hawk Stance uses no mana while no monster is next to you.
- Added Mirrorweave, a unique robe: when a hit would kill you, one of your illusions within 2 tiles takes it instead, once every 50 turns.
- Added Sheepdog, a unique spear: in Wolf Stance, your extra hits reach as far as your weapon and pull each monster they hit 1 tile toward you.
- Added Quicksilver, a unique ring: Smoke and Mirrors can be cast at a monster up to 6 tiles away, and its illusions appear around that monster.
- Added Kindred, a unique amulet: in Bat Stance, the life you steal also heals each of your allies for the same amount.
- Ranger
- Added Hawk Stance, Wolf Stance and Bat Stance: one at a time, they change your plain attacks and drain 3% of your maximum mana a turn while a monster is awake in sight.
- Hawk Stance adds damage and makes critical hits strike again. Wolf Stance's plain attacks hit extra monsters. Bat Stance steals life and causes bleeds that steal life too.
- Added trait paths Raking Talons and Overdraw (Hawk Stance), Feeding Frenzy and Lone Wolf (Wolf Stance), and Out for Blood and Lifeblood (Bat Stance).
- Added keystones Fixation (Hawk Stance), Pick Them Off (Wolf Stance) and Slow Drip (Bat St
- Mage
- Added Second Self, a level 5 passive: your weapon hits have a 23% + 3% per rank chance to make an illusion of you that fights for a few turns with a share of your damage.
- Added Smoke and Mirrors, a level 13 skill that needs Second Self: summons three stronger illusions for 16 turns, with a 20-turn cooldown.
- Added trait paths Mirror Shards and Stand-In (Second Self), and Follow Suit and Hall of Mirrors (Smoke and Mirrors).
- Added keystones Phantasm (Second Self) and Recollection (Smoke and Mirrors).
Changed
- General
- Critical hit chance above 50% now counts for half, and above 75% for a quarter.
- Reckless reworked: each hit you take gives a stack, up to 5, for +5% critical hit chance . At rank 2 your next critical hit spends them for +10% critical damage each, and at rank3 the action after a critical hit takes half the time.
- Giant Slayer removed.
- Heroes who had a removed skill or trait get its skill points and trait picks back.
- The Blessing of Ruin now also pierces shadow resistance by 15%.
- Skill, trait, item and boss texts rewritten to be shorter and plainer.
- Items
- The rare shield name word Keep is now Shelter.
- Wildfire's trail now crackles softly, and its kill burst has a new sound.
- Monsters
- A chilled boss's actions now take 25% longer, down from 50%.
- The Skeleton King uses Bone Slam every 16 turns, up from 9.
- On Normal, the Skeleton King has 80% more life and deals 96% more damage.
- The Skeleton King now deals triple damage to totems.
- The Pharaoh uses Sand Wave every 13 turns, up from 9, and Grave Wraps every 9 turns, up from 6.
- On Merciless, the Pharaoh has an orb circling him for each sarcophagus still standing, and an orb sits on each standing sarcophagus.
- The Frost Wyrm no longer dives under the ice. Instead, every 15 turns it charges a hero 4 or more tiles away down a lane 3 tiles wide, dealing 8-14 damage and stunning.
- The Frost Wyrm now moves faster (a step takes 60% of a turn, down from 85%), uses its breath, tail and falling ice about half as often, and only breathes within 3 tiles.
- Frozen Hide reworked: the Frost Wyrm takes half damage until 5 hits break the hide, then full damage for 6 turns before the hide grows back.
- The Demon Lord now resists cold, lightning and poison by 10% on Normal up to 50% on Mercisistance stays at 50%.
- The Demon Lord now has 15 more armor on Normal, up to 90 more on Merciless.
- The Demon Lord's Inferno now ignores resistances.
- The Demon Lord's plain blows now deal physical damage instead of fire.
- Warrior
- Bone Breaker, Bloodied Arcs and Brawler removed.
- Ranger
- Keen Eye removed, along with its trait paths Weak Spot and Overwatch.
- Evasion reworked: a melee blow you dodge now hits another monster next to you or the attaf its damage, and an arrow you dodge flies on to the first monster behind you.
- Hunter's Focus reworked: your first bow attack on each monster always hits and deals 50% more damage. At rank 2, a kill with it makes your next bow attack take half the time, and at rank 3 it is always a critical hit.
- Hunter's Mark damage bonus reduced from 15% + 2% per rank to 11% + 1% per rank.
- Predator damage bonus reduced from 25% to 15%.
- Rogue
- Virulence replaced by Festering: your poison deals more damage for each turn it has lasted on a monster.
- Lethality's Dexterity per theft is now halved for every 5 thefts you hold, down to 1 per
- Backstab has new attack and hit sounds.
- Paladin
- Righteous removed.
- Devotion replaced by Afterglow: an aura you switch off keeps working for 3 turns (6 from rank 2) without holding back mana.
- Warband's healing is now limited to 2% of maximum life per turn for you and for each ally.
- Holy Strike has its own sound.
- Mage
- Quickening replaced by Havoc Mage: each spell hit adds 4% + 0.5% per rank of your unreserhtning damage, and spells that cost mana cost 3% of your mana more.
- Quick Reflexes replaced by Spellguard: the extra mana Havoc Mage adds to a spell's cost becomes a shield.
- Arcane Flow replaced by Mana Globes: monsters your spells kill can drop mana globes that restore mana.
- Energy Shield now unlocks at level 9, down from 13.
- Static Field's spare sparks deal 10% of the damage, down from 25%.
- Static Field's damage bonus per floor reduced from 10% to 7.5%.
- Priest
- Searing Light removed.
- Judgement now stuns bosses and unique leaders for 1 turn, down from 2.
- Martyr's Grace's text now says that healing past your maximum life is lost.
- Warlock
- Hex Weaver replaced by Doom: a cursed monster stores part of the damage it takes and takese ends.
- Leech reworked: each Drain Life adds a stack, up to 2/3/4, and each stack heals you for 2% of its cast's damage each turn for 4 turns.
- Amplify Damage now also increases shadow damage.
- Hollow Bones now makes amplified monsters take more fire, cold, lightning, poison and holy damage, at half of Amplify Damage's bonus.
- Shaman
- Fire Totem damage changed from 5-9 to 3-6 at rank 1, from 16-29 to 8-13 at rank 10, and from 29-52 to 18-32 at rank 20.
- Storm Totem damage reduced by 15% (rank 10: from 10-72 to 8-61).
- Totemic Weapon's totem bolts now carry your imbue at 33% of its damage, and only at the first monster each totem strikes in a turn.
- Weapon Spirit now attacks from your weapon's range with a bow or wand, and a bow's spirit shoots arrows.
- Gale Weapon's extra strikes can now only be critical hits when the attack they come from was one.
Fixed
- General
- Fixed stutter in big fights with many combat numbers on screen.
- Fixed an error when a summoned or spawned creature died in the same turn it appeared.
- Fixed dead monsters sometimes staying on their feet with their health bars, and picked-up gold staying on the floor.
- Fixed life and mana staying above their maximum on a new floor after a Huge monster's bonus wore off.
- Fixed a skill's rank not flashing on the skills page when raised.
- Fixed Vengeance's status line saying the next monster you hit takes the stored damage; only a skill uses it, as holy damage.
- Monsters
- Frost Lance's and Soul Rot's combat log lines now say what happened instead of repeating the rule.
- Rogue
- Fixed Hemorrhage poisoning from Rupture's bleed and burn damage as well as its poison damage.
- Paladin
- Fixed Avenger's and Zeal's damage bonuses applying again to strikes made from another blow, such as Twin Strike, Sweep, Ricochet and Skewer.
- Priest
- Fixed Sanctified Shield's burst getting your damage bonuses and critical hits; it now deals exactly what the shield absorbed.
- Mage
- Fixed a Resonance echo's zone sometimes staying drawn on the floor.
- Shaman
- Fixed the imbue that Elemental Echo keeps working showing as switched off on the status row.