Greetings Flameborn! Let’s cut right to the chase: mages in Enshrouded could do with a little bit of love. When we shipped combat changes in our last update, it was knowing we’d come back for mages at a later point. And the future is now, old man, so let’s dive in! Mage gameplay improvements We are bringing some much-needed variety to the mystic classes, by adding a variety of new spells as well as increasing the level range in which these spells are useful, and reworking enemy weaknesses. There are a total of 9 new spells coming to Embervale, adding utility and crowd control as well as damage, with powerful area of effect spells and even a new category of spells, summons! Here’s the roster of new stuff: Mana Drain Entangle Pillar of Flames Blizzard Ball Lightning Summon Fire Totem Summon Ice Totem Summon Shock Totem Summon Hollow Skeleton Here's a couple of them in action: We know many of you love the necromancy part of the tree so we threw some friendly faces in there for the more macabre-minded among you. Maybe one of them is Kyle! We’re also adding two skills to the skill tree to increase the amounts of summonable skeletons and totems, in case you want the whole gang with you. The Entangle spell should also help dealing with tougher enemies, and the two new AoE spells, Blizzard and Ball Lightning, with groups of enemies! Also Mana Drain, which saps enemies of a fixed amount of mana per second to add it to your pool. Existing and new spells will now get more versions, so that you can keep using your favorite spell combination from previous biomes as you progress through Embervale! There are now 22 tier 7 spell versions, which are the Eternal version of the spell. Eternal spells are the versions that do not consume spell ammo to be cast. Note that Eternal spells can also now be upgraded like weapons and armor, with unique new perks, such as reduced mana cost, etc. Spell mana costs and casting times have been reworked to be balanced around their damage output and general usability. If you’re about to unleash a nuke, it’s gonna take more than a snap of the fingers, but in the meantime, here’s a quick spell to the face. Pocket sand! Wand combat improvements We are also reworking wands to offer a heavy attack. Heavy attacks now pierce enemies, meaning that you can hit beyond the first bad guy. They also interrupt attacks on weaker enemies! On top of that, we’re adding to new wand skills: Aerial Wand Attack: can be triggered in mid-air and is an AoE for wands Wand Evasion Attack: adds more flow to wand gameplay, and has wider, piercing projectiles. Wand targeting (soft lock and hard lock) is improved. The settings are different for ranged weapons and melee, and now prioritize the center of the screen as well as enemies closer to you. This should increase the reliability and predictability of targeting. We’ve also included numerous fixes for switching between wand and staff during combat. Finally, you can now target explosive barrels with wands, which should delight the bad friends and chaos gremlins among you. New skills for mages & archers Here are all the new skills for mages: Aerial Wand Attack (see above) Wand Evasion Attack (see above) Advanced Necromancy (more skeletons!) Totem Mastery (more totems!) Blast and Cast (After a critical strike with a wand, the base damage of your next staff attack within 10 seconds is increased by 50%) That last one should also help mage players pull out some interesting combos by switching between weapon types when the opportunity arises. While we think archers were in a better spot than mages, we don’t want them to feel left out by the attention other classes have received, so we’re adding a couple of skills to their arsenal: Puncture (Ranged piercing damage is increased by x%) Barrage (Dealing damage with Bows has a x% chance to restore 1 durability to that weapon) Survival Instinct (Defeating a Shroud-infested enemy with a bow or dagger restores x sec of time in the Shroud) In addition to these new skills, we’ve also made changes based on community feedback, such as moved skills, reduced costs, buffed effects, etc. Finally, there are new aim assist options for ranged combat, which can be set in the game settings. Aim assist is enabled by default for controller, and disabled by default for mouse & keyboard. New Eternal arrows All Eternal arrows are also upgradeable, like weapons and now spells, also with perks! We’ve also added three new Eternal arrows for your eternal shooting needs: Eternal Fire arrow Eternal Shock arrow Eternal Bone arrow Player movement improvements We are bringing many additional animation and movement fixes, with the aim of making the player characters move in a more realistic fashion, while retaining agility and responsiveness. Enemy variety The family is getting bigger, with all enemy factions, such as the Fell and Scavengers, getting a bunch of new enemy variants to keep encounters fresh. Some of these are heavy or elite level, so be on your guard when exploring the world. Better safe than sorry! New level cap New biome means new enemy tier and max level, for players and gear! Max player level cap is now 50, with a cap for equipment at level 55, and a whole host of new stuff for you to find. Final thing to note: with the new skills and changes to existing skill placement in the tree, your skill tree has been reset, hopefully for the last time. Don’t step out of your base without investing your points, or you’re gonna have a bad time. That’s it for our overview of combat changes for 1.0! We hope you are excited to try out the new stuff, and if you’re keen on playing a mage character when the game releases out of Early Access on October 15th, let us know!The team at Keen Games
Auto-posted from the developer's official Steam announcement.
