Greetings Defenders,
We want to start by giving everyone a clear picture of where we are and why this patch arrived when it did. While working hard on the next major update, we discovered fixes for several severe issues including players being incorrectly flagged as hackers and a handful of crashes that could interrupt gameplay. Our original plan was to ship these changes in the upcoming PTR, but because of the severity of the problems, we stopped everything and pushed these fixes out immediately along with the tower rebalances that were already completed and tested. The next major update will include the remaining tower rebalances, several hero rebalances, additional bug fixes, quality of life improvements, and will be released to the Public Testing Realm so the community can help us refine Phase 1 as we continue moving forward. This patch also addresses the fact that runes were not dropping properly from enemies and were appearing only in chests. We took this opportunity to correct that behavior and to give attention to towers that were falling behind. These changes mark the beginning of broader balance improvements across DD:A.
Lycan King Changes
We’ve received a lot of feedback about the Lycan King fight, with many players saying it felt unfair across all stages of play. While we originally aimed to simply tone down the damage-over-time effect, that adjustment ended up breaking it entirely. As a result, the DoT effect applied during the Lycan King’s howling state should no longer occur.
Campaign Rune Drop Tables
The rune crash was identified as a major issue affecting progression, so we’ve made significant adjustments to how runes drop in Campaign. Runes can now drop directly from completing Campaign missions, with their preferred maps serving as guaranteed locations for these drops. The qualities of the runes have been increased to allow higher-quality drops, giving players a better chance at Godly or Transcendent runes.
Runes are weighted on a scale from 1 to 10, and some runes will drop in lower quantities than others. Massacre Campaign typically drops a Godly rune, though it is not guaranteed, while Nightmare Campaign can drop any rune level, with Transcendent being extremely rare. To maximize quality, running Hardcore or Rift Mode is recommended.
Below is the updated list of preferred maps for each rune and their weighted drop values:
Deeper Well: 10/3 (two drops)
Ancient Mines: 10/3 (two drops)
Lava Mines: Focus Fire and Mystical Repair, favoring Repair 10/3
Alchemical Laboratory: 10/4/10 (three drops)
Magus Quarters: 4/10/10 (three drops)
Tornado Valley: 10/3/6 (three drops)
Tornado Highlands: 5/10/8 (three drops)
Ramparts: 10/5/5 (three drops)
Throne Room: 10/10/5 (three drops)
Endless Spires: 5/10 (two drops)
Arcane Library: 10/3 (two drops)
Royal Gardens: 5/10/5 (three drops)
Promenade: 10/5/5 (three drops)
Summit: 10/5/5 (three drops)
Glitter-helm: 5/10/5 (three drops)
The Mill: 10/3/5 (three drops)
Outpost: 10/5/5 (three drops)
Keep: 5/10/5 (three drops)
Foundries and Forges: 3/5/10 (three drops)
Bazaar: 5/10/5 (three drops)
Metropolis: 5/5/10 (three drops)
Forsaken Temple: 3/6/10 (three drops)
Castle Armory: 10/5/5 (three drops)
Kings Game Campaign (Massacre/Nightmare): drops the following runes Sluggish Aura, Pet-Master, Owls at the following weights 10/5/5
Yuletide Village Campaign (Massacre/Nightmare): drops the following runes Xplo, Overdrive, Spiders Poison at the following weights 10/3/5
Defense Changes
Apprentice
Magic Blockade tower health hero stat scalar increased to 1.5 from 1.0
Deadly Striker Tower Rune AOE range increased to 450 from 250
DST Rune cooldown halved (Godly: 3.5s → 1.75s)
Squire
Spike Blockade tower health hero stat scalar increased to 2.0 from 1.0
Spike Blockade tower damage increased to 1.75 from 1.6
Spike Blockade now applies a 5% attack rate slow for 3 seconds to attackers
Bowling Ball projectiles now explode on impact, dealing 50% physical AOE damage
Sniper Cannon no longer prioritizes copter flares
Slice and Dice Blockade tower health hero stat scalar increased to 2.75 from 1.0
Slice and Dice Blockade Rune damage increased across tiers (now 8/16/24/32/48/64/96/120)
Huntress
Poison Trap Rune damage reduced by 0.25 (200% → 150%) and now affects up to 21 targets
Poison Dart Tower projectiles pierce one extra target
Poison Dart Tower scales 10% better with defense rate, reaching 0.25s faster
Poison Dart Tower Rune duration changed from 3/4/5 to 4.5/6/7.5
Inferno Trap base speed reduced to 9 seconds from 16.62s
Inferno Trap Rune duration increased from 3s to 5s
Inferno Trap reset speed now scales from a 1-second base with a 0.6 exponent
Thunder Spike Trap reset time base increased to 2.5s (up from 0)
Thunder Spike Trap hero stat exponent increased to 0.65, improving reset scaling
Guardian
Holy Bulwark’s Protective Ring now scales with tower Range
Holy Bulwark tower health hero stat scalar increased to 2.5 from 1.0
Note: Holy Bulwark does not benefit from Striking Gemstone
Note: While trying to implement the Range scalar for the Holy Bulwark, we broke the Protective effect it applies, a revert to the original ends up crashing the game. We are aware of the bulwark’s protection effect not applying properly. We are investigating this, and will be fixed in a future patch. So sorry for the inconvenience, it will be worth the wait. For now, it can be played as a regular wall with more than normal HP scaling.
Obelisk DoT damage scalar increased by 25%
Obelisk minimum slow increased to 50% from 25%
Obelisk base slow increased to 75% from 70%
Obelisk scales 20% better with defense rate, reaching 0.25s faster
Obelisk tower damage hero stat scalar increased to 1.75 from 1.5
Empowering Shrine now costs 2 DU and 200 mana, with a 5% rune buff increase
Additional Improvements
All Helping Hand variants no longer cost build mana to repair defenses
All Corgi-related items are now tradeable
Lost Metropolis wave 1 build mana increased to 360 from 160
Bazaar wave 1 build mana increased to 315 from 160
Foundries and Forges wave 1 build mana decreased to 380
Foundries and Forges subsequent waves now award 350 mana instead of 800
Rift Corgi now properly grants 5% Rift Armor
Gold Ramster speed de-buff now correctly applies for 5 seconds
All Yellow Ramster Cans now properly restore speed scaling before Sugar Rush loops
Castle Armory crash fixed
Reflected Field Rune description updated
Gold genie now properly applies a 50% stronger mana drain than the base genie with a 4 second cooldown
Rift genie now properly applies a 25% stronger mana drain than the base with a 6 second cooldown.
Conclusion:
With today’s update, we’re excited to share a clearer look at what’s ahead for Dungeon Defenders: Awakened and the work of the Community Development Team. We’re a small group of passionate people doing our best to deliver meaningful updates, so we appreciate your patience as we continue refining the game. This update brings us one step closer to Phase 2 of the DD:A Renaissance, and we hope it encourages you to cheer us on, share your feedback and ideas on all socials, and, if you’d like to support the team directly, consider purchasing the existing cosmetic costumes. You’re also welcome to join the official Dungeon Defenders Discord server, where you can connect with us and the wider community as we continue building the DD:A Renaissance together.
Until Next Time,
The Community Development Team