Summary: A complete rebalance of all melee and magic skills in the game, along with various other balancing changes!
Recommended level: N/A
Patch Description
Intro
So, as many of you know, the skills in the game have been very unbalanced. Most magic has been outright bad and normal attacks has been way too good (which in turn made Shadow Clone extremely good). Players maining, say, Chain Lightning would find a much tougher experience than someone who chose Heroic Slam or Flamethrower.
Needless to say, that's not ideal, and for a long while we've wanted to rebalance everything completely, but only recently did we reach a point where we had the two things we needed before a proper rebalance could happen: a place to test the gold charges (Tai Ming), and the support skills replaced (the Utility skill page).
So with this update, the game has changed significantly for almost every build. For the most part we've decided to juice up all the bad skills instead of nerfing the good ones, with the exception of Shadow Clone, which was just silly!
This means that for most builds the game just got noticeably easier, but lovers of difficulty probably don't need to worry: Hydras & Friends will still eat newbies like salmon sushi, it's just that all builds now have a fighting chance (if used wisely).
Anyways, let's get into the details of what's been happening this past month:
Wand Projectiles
Both 1H and 2H magic weapons now creates a projectile when swung! 1H Weapons will create a small, fast projectile that explodes on impact. 2H Weapons will create a wider projectile that goes through enemies.
This change was added to let magic users do something with their lives while waiting for EP (apart from using Focus). It also lets magic users finish off low health targets without breaking their long range play style by having to go Rocky Balboa on their enemies all of a sudden.
Attack/Cast Speed now affect skill animations
Probably the most radical change. All skills and spells now have a component that scales with ASPD or CSPD. For the melee skills, it's usually pretty straightforward by having the attack animation sped up. All sub-parts of the spell also gets sped up, like the Spirit Slash shadows coming out faster. For magic spells, the cast animations are faster, meteors have a reduced delay, fireballs travel faster, etc.
Some things, like summons, do not scale 1:1 with CSPD, but it will still affect them.
Of course, just like before ASPD and CSPD will decrease the time it takes to charge the spell as well!
One Handed Basic Attack Nerf
The one handed basic attacks have had their damage reduced by a whopping 30 % - before they used to be so strong that using skills actually decreased your DPS in some cases, which was not a great place to be. Shadow Clone builds could easily get to a point where only mashing the attack button while tanking damage could beat almost all bosses, even with moderate farm levels.
As it is now, basic attacks are still strong for when you're out of EP, but using skills are always a good idea. Shadow Clone builds are still viable, but now you need to put in the work to use it smartly!
EP Regen
Before, EP Regen didn't kick in until a full second after casting a spell. This was silly, and now it will kick in almost immediately, which makes it more straightforward to predict.
QoL Changes
A couple of often requested quality of life changes have been made.
Firstly, getting to a boss will now refill your HP and EP, so you're always ready for a fair battle. This might be extended to some of the regular enemy gauntlets as well, but right now those work like before!
Second, if you have a persistent spell (summon, shadow clone, etc) active when you die, the spell will now be recast automatically when you get revived.
Significant Reworks
While every single spell has been changed in some way, two spells have been changed in a more extravagant fashion! Oh, and Freeze.
Smash!: When charging up the smash, you will now be able to summon one or more smash balls. The smash balls persists for three hits, powering up with each one. The final hit will explode and deal AoE damage upon hitting a wall or a large enemy!
Throw: You can now call back your weapon on all charge levels, although it's only Gold Charge that deals damage on its way back. Importantly, you can still pick your weapon up, and doing so will refund a portion of the EP cost and also deal additional AoE damage!
Freeze/Chill: You can now Freeze and Chill bosses! Bosses are frozen for a shorter duration than regular enemies. Frozen enemies will break after up to three hits, and those three hits have a bonus crit chance of 50 %.
Changes Sorted by Skill
I thought about just adding these in the patch notes, but this is probably easier to read. So let's get on with it!
One Handed
Piercing Dash: Damage up on all charges, gold charge now moves slower to allow for a mortal human to cancel it into attacks or other skills.
Blade Flurry: Damage up on all charges, and the animations on the higher levels have been tightened to dish the damage out much faster. Also slightly increased range.
Spirit Slash: EP cost down for silver and gold, damage up on silver and gold, extra damage up for the gold charge non-finisher shadows
Dodging Strike: On a perfect dodge the dash will automatically extend if it can't reach its target, damage has been increased on all levels, stun duration has been increased, and the gold charge debuff is now a proper Reaper's Blade instead of a flat damage increase
Shadow Clone: Shadow Clone itself has not been nerfed, but due to the changes to basic attacks its damage output is much lower.
Two Handed
Heroic Slam: Damage slightly down on gold charge
Whirlslash: Damage up on all levels, EP cost up, level 1 slash has a slightly longer delay before it can be canceled
Throw: Can now be called back on all levels, can be picked up for an additional attack and partial EP refund, damage up on all levels, damage between throw and explosion can no longer be combined, faster charge time
Smash!: Smash balls can now be summoned to be used for ammo instead of enemies (always useful, but on bosses especially), damage up, charge time down
Berserker Style: Since skills now scale with ASPD, it plays very differently to begin with. Damage bonus increased on all levels, damage received increased on all levels, maximum attack speed gained has been lowered on all levels, EP decay is slower, EP decay is slowed down for a while after landing an attack or skill, EP decay is slowed down while charging a skill, EP recovery per hit has been lowered on higher levels
Fire Magic
Fireball: Damage up on all levels, and most importantly... new graphics!
Meteor: Damage up on all levels, EP cost down on gold charge
Flamethrower: Movement during silver charge slower, ep cost up on high levels, duration down, dps up, knockback removed, startup is faster, can withstand one weak hit without breaking (yes, looked like we buffed it, we thrive in chaos)
Ice Magic
Ice Spikes: Can now freeze! Damage up on all levels, ep cost down
Ice Nova: EP cost up, greater chance to freeze, damage up
Frosty Friend: Damage up on all levels, HP down on all levels, now has a maximum amount of targets that will be drawn towards it (1 on the tiny version, 2 on the medium and large version)
Earth Magic
Earth Spike: Reduced charge time, damage up, easier to land knockups, EP cost down for silver and gold
Summon Plant: Melee plants have increased range and damage, ranged plants have reduced range, plants will have a longer duration if not hitting stuff, but shorter if hitting stuff, the boss plant's two permanent minions are now weaker, moving the boss plant now costs a little bit of EP
Insect Swarm: Damage is dealt faster, damage slightly increased
Wind Magic
Chain Lightning: Damage increased on all levels, EP cost up, if nothing is in range no EP is lost, will now primarily damage whatever enemy the player is facing, damage is now more focused to one target
Cloud: Damage up on all levels - especially gold, damage per hit down but responsiveness and attack speed is increased
Static Touch: Damage up on all levels, no longer stuns, EP cost up, casting it now summons max cubes, cubes now disappear when zoning or entering a cutscene, you no longer lose cubes from getting hit, cubes trigger quicker on silver charge
Utility
Focus: Now scales with EP Regen - basically if you have no ep regen in your kit, it will be less effective, and if you have some EP Regen it will be more effective. The 'Focused' buff now reduces the cost of the next spell by 50 % instead of making it free.
Barrier: Barrier hits now grant a short hit immunity, if a barrier breaks the stun and knockback of the attack will now affect the player regularly, in Arcade Mode a broken barrier means no more barrier that room, damage numbers are purple now to differentiate it from shield blocked attacks
Other Patch Notes
Hotfix 2017-09-12
- Balance: The EP cost of Empower and Fortify has been lowered to 30
- Balance: Most spells have had their bronze charge made stronger to better reflect the added cost and charge time
- Bugfix: Getting hit while trying to retrieve a thrown weapon no longer makes the weapon unretrievable
- Bugfix: The Mimic's hourglass slow no longer condemns clients to an eternity in slowland
- Bugfix: Dying during a boss battle and then getting revived by a cutscene no longer gives a permanent MaxEP boost
- Bugfix: Certain miss timings in Robin's arrow game should no longer give negative combo values in multiplayer
- Bugfix: Freezing an enemy by perfect guarding with the Winter's Guard shield now uses the correct Freeze code
- Bugfix: You can once again turn off shadow clone, berserk and the cloud as a client!
- Bugfix: Freezing the Mimic before it wakes up no longer turns him into Briar Rose
- Bugfix: Fortify now actually works
- Bugfix: Piercing Dashing into a new zone as client no longer gives a supersonic speed boost
- Bugfix: (Housing) Placing a candle on a table, moving said table, then canceling a move of only the candle no longer crashes the game
- Bugfix: Dying in with a summon active no longer blocks resummoing it the next run
- Bugfix: Clients no longer seem to lose HP from a broken barrier
- Bugfix: Hovering over Angel's Thirst when it's equipped now shows the correct ATK within the parentheses
- Bugfix: Holding up pet taming items should now display properly on clients
Additions
- Command: You can now type /repet in the chat to reset the stats of your current pet
- Network: A lot of skills and spells should now feel more responsive as a client with high ping
- Gameplay: Giga Slime now has a minimum cooldown on the saw attack
- Gameplay: Monkeys no longer become invincible and run away during long combos
- Gameplay: All spells should now be able to crit (if they can't it's a bug)
- Housing: You can now buy more candles from Carpenter
- Misc: The Apprentice's Rod has been replaced by the 2H magic weapon Apprentice's Staff, and the Rod will become Magician's Rod, replacing Ruby Rod
- Misc: The cost for refunding has been significantly reduced, and is now based on main story progress, not character level
- Misc: Dying against Marino now spawns you right outside the gate
- Misc: Stasis now freezes the countdown on Reaper's Blade
- Misc: When a buff expires due to zoning, the player will now be notified of this
- Misc: Damage done to a Barrier now has a different color, to distinguish it from shield blocking
- Network: Fixed an issue where the game compensated for lag a bit too much if the connection was good
- Fixed a bug where you could blink past Teddy and Freddy without fighting them
- Fixed a bug where you could blink past the cutscene outside Flying Fortress
- Fixed a bug causing Berserker Mode to continue stacking permanent ASPD for clients
- The pet taming minigame now respects rebinds on controllers for the Attack and Shield presses
- Fixed some issues with Blink going through supposedly-path-blocking NPCs
- Barrier damage now counts against your Arcade Mode score, and damaging it fails 'Don't Get Hit'-challenges
- Perfect blocking with Barrier no longer applies the equipped shield's special effect
- A Barrier perfect block only negates the first hit - following hits can break the barrier
- Gold Charge Piercing Dash no longer goes through the Inner Shrine Gate of Tai Ming
- Made some changes on how server and client communicate skill charges that will hopefully fix som desync issues
- Phase Shifting while charging skills no longer leave the charge effects around
- The mirror puzzle in the Flying Fortress no longer needs all players to reset it, preventing locking out friends
- Monkeys now break out of their ice prison if panicked while frozen
- Fixed a crash that happened if a Barrier was broken twice the same frame
- Fixed a bug where the server would sometimes ignore basic attacks if the client spammed the button with great fervor and intensity
- Reaper's Blade no longer automatically fills up when battling against The Cursed Priestess
- Fixed a bug where blink would cause the camera to 'snap' to the target location after doing the Mt Bloom Phase Shift segment
- Perfect dodging poison clouds no longer crashes the game (nor does it trigger a perfect dodge)
- Fixed a bug where playing with Frosty Friend for a long time would cause ever increasing performance slowdown
Last edited:
Is there any new translation-related stuff? If it's not much, I might still do that at least.
