v0.12.0 — Classes, skill trees and a first-person fight

The biggest update so far. Building a hero works differently from the ground up: every class has its own skills, its own trees and its own weapons to grow into, and the fight itself looks different.

Highlights

Classes, and the Monk

Archetypes are now classes. The Vanguard is gone and the Monk takes its place: +20% damage with any staff, −20% with other weapons unless they swing at normal speed, and neutral with a shield. Its damage comes from the elements (see below). Berserker, Duelist and Sentinel keep their passives.

You pick a class when you create a hero, and there is no class respec any more. You get one free change until level 10, in case the first pick was wrong. Because the whole skill system changed, every existing hero gets one free class pick: the class picker opens once on your next visit to the main menu, all skill points are refunded, and former Vanguards start out as Monks. The leaderboard now shows each hero’s class.

Three skill trees per class

Each class has its own Main, Active and Passive tree of seven skills each, and 45 of those skills are new. Rows unlock at levels 1, 6, 12, 24 and 50. The main-attack capstones sit at level 24, and an always-on mastery closes each Main tree at level 50. To learn a skill you need at least one rank in every skill that leads into it, and some skills have two parents.

Some skills need a certain grip. Cleave and Executioner want a two-hander, Ambidexterity and Thousand Cuts two weapons, the shield attacks and Shield Wall a shield, Cataclysm a staff. With anything else equipped, a gated main attack falls back to Strike and a gated mastery goes quiet. No item is ever locked to a class.

The Skills panel shows your class’s three trees in the familiar card style, and the connectors route around every card. Hovering a skill lights up its whole chain of prerequisites. The class picker shows each class’s Main tree and the weapon setup it is built around.

Active skills have no cooldowns: rage (20, or 40 for capstone buffs) and your cast rules set the pace. Debuff skills now cast in half a second.

Amulets roll +x to (Class) Skills instead of +x to All Skills, which only uniques carry now. Rush (Duelist) and Charge (Berserker) replace Lightfoot and Thick Skull. On every kill they have a chance (70% at rank 20) to rush you straight into the next enemy, or to land the first swing of the next fight after half a second. Both show a status icon while they are pending, and a charged swing fills its bar over that half second. Some uniques can also grant a skill from another class at the item’s rank. It shows up in an extra row under your trees.

Staves

Three new two-handed weapon families: the Bo (1.5 s), the Battlestaff (2.0 s) and the Ironstaff (2.5 s). They roll the normal weapon affixes and have their own track at the Training Grounds: +2% defense rating per tier, and at tier 6 Parry, which gives +10% block chance and lets you block without a shield.

The Monk’s elements

The Monk’s five elemental main attacks now hit for a flat 50% weapon damage, and all of their growth is in the element. Ember Strike, Rime Edge and Stormbrand add 75% of your weapon damage as fire, cold or lightning at rank 1, and 210% at rank 20. Plaguebearer’s poison starts at 100% and reaches 235%. Cataclysm carries all four elements at 25% each, reaching 92.5% each.

These shares, and the elemental and poison conversions of Fiery Blade, Freezing Veins, Thundering Strike and Venomous Steel, are based on the damage shown on your weapon’s card, not on the buffed hit. A Monk grows stronger through +% elemental damage, not +% Enhanced Damage.

First-person combat

You now see the fight through your hero’s eyes. The enemy stands in the middle, facing you, and your attacks are drawn as weapon swings: a slash with blades, a chop with an impact ring for maces, an overhead strike for staves, a wide sweep for two-handers, two crossing slashes on their own timers when dual wielding, and a shield wave for shield attacks. A miss draws the swing without the impact.

Enemy attacks lunge at you. A hit flashes a red vignette, a block lights a gold shield rim, and ranged enemies throw projectiles that grow as they fly at you. A hero card in the corner shows your class, name, level and life, with your buffs stacked above it. Enemy debuffs hang under the enemy’s box, and the enemy’s swing timer now sits inside it. Status stacks open a second column instead of running into other panels, and on phones every overlay is scaled down to fit.

Skill cards, redrawn

Skill tooltips are now a clean ledger: one row per value, the label on the left, the value on the right, scaling values in gold. A “Next rank” block lists only what changes. Unlearned skills show their rank-1 values and a line with what they reach at rank 20. The same card is used on desktop and in the mobile action sheet.

Also in this update

Six new uniques can drop: Lekinon (Battlestaff), Guardian (Greatsword), Stonecrusher (Maul), Icebranch (Bo), Trinity (ring) and Jakob (Maul).
The four class pendants from Theron now give +3 to their own class’s skills, +15–30 to all attributes and all resistances, plus a class bonus: +10% to every element for the Monk, 15% block chance for the Sentinel, 20% attack speed for the Duelist, 20% crushing blow for the Berserker.
New starting gear: every class now starts in level-1 training armor with a class weapon (Berserker a Training Greatclub, Monk a Training Staff, Duelist two Training Daggers, Sentinel a Training Sword and Training Buckler). Fixed: the old starter armor and kite shield had level requirements above 1, so they came off on the first unequip and could not be put back on.
Rank 1 is now always a skill’s base value, and each further rank adds to it. Skills with a base of their own, like the main attacks, bleeds and buff durations, start exactly at that base and end one step lower at rank 20 (Strike 181%, Crush 275%, buffs 5 s at rank 1 and 24 s at rank 20). All other skills are unchanged.
Retribution counters 33% of the hits you take at rank 20 (was 15%).
Cleave gets its full bonus (+40% at rank 20) against any enemy above 50% life, instead of a bonus that faded as the enemy got hurt.
Skill balance: Strike deals less, so the capstone attacks beat it at rank 20. Thousand Cuts hits 4 times instead of 5, Executioner hits harder and swings at normal speed, shield damage is ×1.5, Aegis hits harder, Rampart Break raises enemy damage taken by 25%, and Apex Predator is now +50% damage against rare, special and boss enemies.
Sell All at the trader sells every normal, magic and rare item in one click. Uniques and locked items are kept. All sell confirmations now show the item art, its name and the payout.
The XP bar shows a percentage. Hover it for the exact numbers.
The hero box now includes damage it used to leave out: the Monk’s elemental share, Vampire Grasp’s hit, Opportunist, Cleave’s bonus and damage-taken debuffs on the enemy.
The elemental part of a skill hit gets its own combat log line.
Weapon swing bars empty while the next enemy walks in.
New artwork for the skill and status icons, and the camp on the world map has its own picture.
Fixed: a dual-wield off-hand weapon breaking mid-swing could stop combat.