Announcement:
Dear Defenders of Etheria,
Apologies for the disruption and we appreciate your patience while we hot fixed as quickly as we could. The last patch caused serious problems for many of you: multiplayer access was broken and our anti-cheat system incorrectly flagged players as hackers after the stat and gear-roll changes. That prevented people from playing online and caused a lot of frustration. We prioritized a hot fix to get multiplayer back online and to stop the false positives
I want to be transparent about the tower reorder and why we made the change. Before touching anything we ran full play-tests from start to finish and found clear problems: the Guardian did not unlock a damaging tower until level seven, her primary and secondary damage magnitudes were low, and Shield Slam had a long cool-down and slow cast, which made early Guardian play feel slow and unrewarding. The Warden, despite having strong towers on paper, felt clunky as an active hero because of high cool-downs, low magnitudes, and a poor seed pickup range. At the same time we saw many towers that were solid in isolation being overlooked because a tower in a previous tier was simply better early on. Rather than patching balance with a dozen quick buffs and Nerfs that only chase one another, we reorganized tower order and tuning so each hero’s defenses feel meaningful and fun from the start. This was a choice for the long-term health of DD:A and we will continue iterating based on play tests and your feedback.
We also reworked the Lycan King fight because it was being trivialized. A bug allowed players to phase him into a howling state and let the game auto-kill him in under two minutes at multiple progression stages. The Keep encounter should be a cornerstone challenge that tests gear and strategy, so that exploit had to go. When we fixed the trivial kill the encounter became too slow and passive, so we redesigned the mechanics to encourage active play and to act as a proper gear check. We buffed healing auras and fairy heals and improved items like the Obsidian Gemstone and the Happy Hera so skilled groups can sustain the fight. Expect cornerstone fights to reward thoughtful builds: higher armor or vitality helps, mobility matters, and using the fight mechanics matters. We did find some issues with test-mode scaling after the rework and we will give those modes extra attention in the next major patch.
This update also brings new pet content and a little bit of fun. New pets begin appearing in Survival at wave 250 and then every 50 waves up to wave 500, and we tucked a small Easter egg into the tavern that reveals a secret message once it is cracked for everyone to see. A few honest call outs on things that did not make this hot fix: there is an item-box duplication glitch we are actively investigating, some pet and item tool-tips are not displaying correctly, and starting manna values on Lost Metropolis and the forge and foundry maps are higher than intended. Those fixes were planned for this patch but needed more testing than we could give while rushing the multiplayer hot-fix. They remain high priority and will be included in the next patch after proper testing. We also hear you about consoles; Xbox and PlayStation updates will come, but our first focus is overhauling and stabilizing the game on PC so the console ports land in good shape.
From the bottom of our hearts, thank you. The Community Development Team is currently two people working day in and day out on this game because we love it and we care about this community. We read your posts on Steam, Discord, and social media, and your feedback—good and bad—shapes what we do next. If you want to help, please keep sending clear bug reports, leave feedback on our Steam posts, join the official Discord to talk with us and meet your fellow Defenders, consider leaving a positive review if you’re enjoying the fixes and content, share the game with friends and family, or support us by buying cosmetics. We truly cannot do this without you and we appreciate every bit of support and feedback.
With gratitude,
The Community Development Team (two people, one huge amount of love)
Patch notes:
Hero Changes:
Squire:
Input key bindings now properly reflect the tower changes
Bowling Ball Tower damage decreased by 30% to reflect the DU change
Sniper Cannon Damage decreased by 5%
Apprentice:
Arcane Blast Damage Coefficient from 1.0 - 1.5
Manna Bomb Damage Coefficient from 1.0 - 2.0
Manna Bomb Cool-down reduced from 20 s to 12 s
Warden:
Input key bindings now properly reflect the tower changes
Wrath gives the Hero a 25% Melee Damage increase
Wrath gives the Hero a 10% Speed Increase
Roots of Purity Wrath now gives a 25% boost armor, up from 15%
Roots of Purity Wrath damage, increased by 25%
Shroomy Pit Wrath damage, increased by 25%
Guardian
Input key bindings now properly reflect the tower changes
Divine Judgement Rune Stun lasts for 1.25 s, Maximum of 2 stacks
Guardian takes 75% damage from nearby Hero’s during Divine Protection
Weapons:
Obsidian Sword-
Increased Hero Stat Scalars by 1.0
Increased Damage Scalar +10.0
Knock back Scalar of 0.05
Increased Attack Rate max by 0.2
Crit Chance Scalar increased by 0.1
Crit Bonus Scalar increased by 5.0
Obsidian Staff-
Increased Hero Stat Scalars by 0.5
Increased Damage Scalar +10.0
Increased Projectile Roll Count Scalar to 0.4 from 0.2
Added Knock back with a Scalar 0.005
Obsidian Pole-arm-
Increased Hero Stat Scalars from 2.5 to 3.5
Increased Weapon Damage Scalar from 33 to 50
Crit Chance Scalar + 0.1
Crit Bonus Scalar + 0.1
Crit Bonus Maximum Scalar increased from 25 - 40
Obsidian Bow-
Rolls with 5 Projectiles from 3 (U.I reflects 6?)
Attack Rate Maximum -0.1
Added Knock back of 0.05
Pets:
Topaz gemstone is functioning properly, (replaced its skeletal mesh with the gemstone) (Change the description to: Gives nearby Heroes 15% increase to Move Speed and Attack Rate for 4 s, with 2 s Cool down )
Lapis gemstone now applies the correct status effect to enemies, making them deal less damage. (There was a bug where the applied effect would give the enemy armor,
- Mista Mine:
Added a Rift Variant to Ancient Mines
Gold Variant has a 50% Cast Rate, and a 50% Move Speed Reduction
Rift Variant has a 40% Cast Rate, and a 40% Move Speed Reduction
Normal Variant has a 30% Cast Rate, and a 30% Move Speed Reduction
With Increasing Hero Stat Scalars per variant
Corgi’s:
With permission, we’ve added a family of Corgi pets to Survival drop tables. These are special: they are the first pets in the Dungeon Defenders franchise to grant the player an extra jump. You can find these good boys darting through Survival starting at Wave 250, and a new Corgi is added to the drop table every 50 waves up to Wave 500. Currently these drop only on Massacre difficulty, Hardcore, and Bonus Waves, and they can appear on all maps.
Base/Rift Corgi:Provides the Hero with 10% Versatility, 40% Cast Rate, and Hero Scalars of 2.75, Rift Corgi gives 5% Rift Armor, and an EXTRA jump!
Fightin’ Corgi: Provides the Hero with 15% Weapon Crit Chance, Hero Scalars of 2.8, and an EXTRA jump!
EdE CorgE: Provides the Hero with 15% Move Speed Boost, Hero Scalars of 2.85, and an EXTRA jump!
Chubbs The Corgi: Provides the Hero with 15% Hero Damage Boost, Hero Scalars of 2.9, and an EXTRA jump!
Milton’s Militant Mutt: Provides the Hero with 2 x Vitality increase, Hero Scalars of 2.95, and an EXTRA jump!
Golden Douglas: Provides the Hero with 15% Attack Rate increase, 10% Move Speed increase, Enemy Knock back, Hero Scalars of 3.0, and TWO EXTRA jumps!