Dev blog 79 - Heroes Rise
This post is written by Mat, our gameplay designer.
Hey! It’s time for a new major patch, and with it, some new toys for you to play with!
When we were planning on what to do during Early Access, we knew that we had to focus a lot on replayability. New alternate maps, new enemies, new skills… and new heroes! With the addition of passives, picking the correct hero for your playstyle is an important part of The Hand of Merlin experience. For that reason, we’re proud to present our newest addition to the hero roster:
Our new warrior is Tariq al-Ash'ab, a berber mercenary. Tariq embodies fancy footwork, and with his Bladedancer passive, he becomes stronger for each nearby enemy. He carries the Cleave ability for a similar purpose, and even sports decent speed and evasion. With some healing support or access to good armor, he can be one of the heaviest hitters in your warband!
For the new ranger, we bring you Alain the White, a mysterious prince. A decent speed and even some evasion, Alain attempts to be a more utility-oriented ranger, with his Fey passive punishing enemies that miss, and the new Decoy skill, that summons an inanimate target to draw enemy fire.
Finally, Isabel de Orreaga is our new mystic. This tough hermit carries heavier defensive attributes than most of her class, and sports the Campaign Surgeon passive, which makes every healing also come with a few stacks of the Keen status effect, increasing the damage of the next attack. To capitalize on that, she has the new Blight ability, an alternative way of healing. When targeting a foe with this ability, all your allies that damage the target are healed for a bit of armor.
Each new hero is an attempt to expand what it means to increase each class’s design space and with it, offer new ways to approach character building. Utility rangers, tanky mystics and warriors that don’t need to circle the battlefield too much, all with new abilities and passives to play with.
And don’t worry: even though Tariq is using an old one, we added the Berserker’s Rage ability to the Warrior’s Pool. A single-target version of Warcry that grows as you deal damage, it will do wonders to validate AoE-oriented builds with Cleave, Charge, and Slam.
Let us know what you think of the new heroes, and which powerful builds you can come up with in our Discord server!
Mat
Hey! It’s time for a new major patch, and with it, some new toys for you to play with!
When we were planning on what to do during Early Access, we knew that we had to focus a lot on replayability. New alternate maps, new enemies, new skills… and new heroes! With the addition of passives, picking the correct hero for your playstyle is an important part of The Hand of Merlin experience. For that reason, we’re proud to present our newest addition to the hero roster:
Our new warrior is Tariq al-Ash'ab, a berber mercenary. Tariq embodies fancy footwork, and with his Bladedancer passive, he becomes stronger for each nearby enemy. He carries the Cleave ability for a similar purpose, and even sports decent speed and evasion. With some healing support or access to good armor, he can be one of the heaviest hitters in your warband!
For the new ranger, we bring you Alain the White, a mysterious prince. A decent speed and even some evasion, Alain attempts to be a more utility-oriented ranger, with his Fey passive punishing enemies that miss, and the new Decoy skill, that summons an inanimate target to draw enemy fire.
Finally, Isabel de Orreaga is our new mystic. This tough hermit carries heavier defensive attributes than most of her class, and sports the Campaign Surgeon passive, which makes every healing also come with a few stacks of the Keen status effect, increasing the damage of the next attack. To capitalize on that, she has the new Blight ability, an alternative way of healing. When targeting a foe with this ability, all your allies that damage the target are healed for a bit of armor.
Each new hero is an attempt to expand what it means to increase each class’s design space and with it, offer new ways to approach character building. Utility rangers, tanky mystics and warriors that don’t need to circle the battlefield too much, all with new abilities and passives to play with.
And don’t worry: even though Tariq is using an old one, we added the Berserker’s Rage ability to the Warrior’s Pool. A single-target version of Warcry that grows as you deal damage, it will do wonders to validate AoE-oriented builds with Cleave, Charge, and Slam.
Let us know what you think of the new heroes, and which powerful builds you can come up with in our Discord server!
Mat