1.5 - 10/13/21
Hey everyone! We’ve been cooking up patch 1.5 for quite some time now, and we’re super excited to finally bring it to y’all. This represents a huge step forward for Dark Deity and our philosophy for balancing the game going forward. While we were pumping out technical patches post launch quite frequently, we were hesitant to mess with the balance and tweak things in small ways. With 1.5, that is going out the window. We’ll be treating it almost like a ‘relaunch’ of sorts, and will be keyed in to your feedback and more actively tweaking the balance to make sure the game is as fun as it possibly can be - making smaller, more frequent changes as opposed to waiting several months to have one sweeping patch like this one. Most of these gameplay changes are geared towards bringing up underperforming characters and classes while curbing some of the more easily broken builds (like Vosh’s + Guga Steak or permadodge Cia) to at the very least take significantly more effort to achieve. The game is now in some ways more difficult, but we’re also providing the player with a wider range of viable builds to deal with that new difficulty. Our biggest goal with Dark Deity was to provide a class and build system that was endless fun to toy around with, and patch 1.5 is a big step towards realizing that. We’re also welcoming a host of new languages to the game, and we can’t wait to see how all those who were holding off ‘til they could play in their native language like it.
Improvements:
-Added Chinese language support
-Added Japanese language support
-Added Korean language support
-Added French language support
-Added Italian language support
-Added Spanish language support
-Added German language support
Fixes:
-typo fixes
-graphical changes that should increase compatibility with older computers
Balance:
General
Complete rework of dodge and accuracy
Combat interactions are now easier to ‘eyeball’ without opening a pre-combat panel
Extremely high dodge is now more difficult to attain
Gold bonus for clearing chapters faster has been reworked to decay slower and offer a higher bonus
Every 3 turns, 25% bonus will be lost from the total 200% possible bonus
Item sale price percentage has been decreased from 80% to 65%
Utility skills now grant xp, similar to heal
Experience now has a sharper cutoff as level increases comparative to enemy level, and a sharper increase as level decreases comparative to enemy level. (Intent here is to make it easier for units to catch up to the party, and harder for units to outpace)
Characters
Elias
Defense aptitude raised to 45% from 35%
Fortitude aptitude raised to 35% from 20%
Proc chance on passive skill changed from 8% to 10%
Aurima
Speed aptitude raised to 30% from 20%
Alexa
Strength aptitude raised to 40% from 25%
Fortitude aptitude lowered to 10% from 15%
Sara
Speed aptitude raised to 35% from 25%
Samara
Strength aptitude raised to 35% from 25%
Magic aptitude raised to 35% from 30%
Benji
Fortitude aptitude raised to 30% from 15%
Dexterity aptitude raised to 30% from 25%
Maeve
Speed raised to 45% from 35%
Classes
General
Lifesteal skills heal % lowered to 20% from 33%
Warrior Tree
The Knight has suffered, falling behind for most of the warriors in pretty much every case. We’re more strictly pushing it towards its niche - high health and big hits to keep it fighting and on the frontlines. The Champion, similar to the barbarian, suffers from having one of the worst utility skills in the game and a lackluster primary skill, so we are buffing Heroic Might considerably to fit the class fantasy better.
Knight
Strength Aptitude raised to 50% from 45%
Mastery Aptitude raised to 50% from 35%
Sturdy: +35% health (was 20%)
Champion
Cannot Double. True Speed adds to Power (2.5x True Speed added) (was 1x)
The barbarian’s utility skill that improves push has really held them back from the combat utility that you would expect from a Barbarian, so we are giving a hefty buff to their primary skill, Savage, to bring their unique flavor more to the forefront. The Berserker, which was already potent with other class combinations, will not be receiving changes.
Barbarian
Savage: Attacks ignore 50% of defense (was 20%)
Speed Aptitude raised to 50% (was 45%)
Dexterity Aptitude raised to 35% (was 30%)
The Defender and Sentinel already have a healthy place in the balance, which will be helped significantly by the dodge/accuracy changes. The only change here is to tool them more towards physical defense and high HP to help them cope with the upcoming changes.
Defender
HP Aptitude raised to 50% from 30%
Fortitude Aptitude lowered to 30% from 45%
Defense Aptitude raised to 60% from 45%
Sentinel
HP Aptitude raised to 50% from 30%
The Dragoon has occupied a pretty overpowered role with the Darmena’s Kiss aspect which is receiving its own nerf, but outside of that strategy, the Dragoon was not fantastic. We are aiming to increase it’s consistency and keep it in a place where it is actually viable outside of Dragoon->Dragon Knight->Darmena’s Kiss. Like the Dragoon, the Dragon Knight benefitted greatly from Darmenas - so we won’t be changing it outside of the nerf to the aspect and Dragoon, which bring it down quite a bit as is.
Dragoon
Strength Aptitude raised to 30% from 20%
Fortitude Aptitude raised to 45% from 25%
Mastery Aptitude reduced to 20% from 30%
Deft Strike: Gain 2.5% crit for each tile moved in the turn (was 4%)
Ranger Tree
Sniper
The Sniper can now attack from 3 range without being countered! (Long time coming, I know)
The Witch Hunter and Green Knight were intended to fit a very particular role of mobile tank/mage killer, and they sort of turned out just feeling bad for the most part in that role. They are both not quite tanky enough and not quite damaging enough to be phenomenal in either role. We will be buffing up their mage killing abilities to better fit the class fantasy. We will also be significantly buffing their support ability to increase the utility of Haste and the frequency of situations it can be used in.
Witch Hunter
Silencing Shot: Power is increased by 50% against magic users and hybrids (was 30%)
Stand Together: Haste grants +40% defense while active. (was 20%)
Strength Aptitude increased to 35% from 30%
HP aptitude increased to 50% from 35%
Green Knight
Forester’s Blessing: Haste grants 40% fortitude while active. (was 20%)
HP aptitude increased to 50% from 35%
The Drifter was very capable of performing well, but it needed to be babied excessively for a majority of the game, just to bring it up to par with easier options. Higher strength fits the class fantasy better and should make this line a more capable early-mid game option.
Drifter
Strength Aptitude raised to 40% from 20%
Outlaw
Strength Aptitude raised to 40% from 25%
Rogue Tree
The rogue tree more than any of the others will be somewhat of a ‘wait and see’ to see how they respond to the accuracy/dodge changes. Since dodge was king and this made Rogues extremely strong, changes will be less here than for some of the other classes. If they end up still too strong or too weak, we will keep an eye on that and make more changes. Disarm now benefiting from exp gain will also help the rogue’s utility quite a bit.
The Stalker’s guaranteed kills via ‘Cruel Efficiency’ can be extremely potent, but with high damage values across the board it was simply too infrequent at 20%. We’re raising that percentage to keep Stalker builds relevant among other buffs.
Stalker
Cruel Efficiency: Guaranteed to hit enemies below 40% health (was 20%)
The Thief and Trickster are fitting their niche nicely, and won’t be getting any changes (the exp gain from disarm benefits this branch most)
The Raider, Slayer, and Duelist are also around where we want them to be at this time. If they appear to be too strong or weak in this upcoming patch, we will make appropriate changes.
The Gladiator’s skills both became underwhelming compared to other T3 classes, and they aren’t tanky enough with the accuracy changes for the 20% heal to be enough. Their niche is to get flashy solo kills via crit and build off of them, making them a strong enemy phase unit.
Gladiator
Thumbs Down: Gain +30% power for a turn after killing an enemy (was 20%)
Flourish: Heal 40% HP after a crit (was 20%)
Cleric Tree
We’re leaving the mage tree untouched outside of the lifesteal changes to the Acolyte and a small inquisitor buff, as we feel it is in a good place. The Hammer and Holy weapon trees will be seeing some buffs which will help with accuracy issues.
Inquisitor
Inquisition: Power increased by 40% of enemy’s magic stat (was 30%)
Mage Tree
We’re leaving the mage tree untouched outside of the lifesteal changes to the Conjurer, as we feel it is in a good place.
Adept Tree
Adept
Magic aptitude raised to 40% from 30%
Strength aptitude raised to 40% from 30%
The adept tree lacks a reliable magic tanking option, and with the Blaze and Firelord sitting in a bit of no man’s land not really fulfilling their ‘nuker’ role as intended, we are reworking their stats to build into more of a hybrid damage dealer/magic tank - opening up more options coming out of Blaze at T2. They are also receiving buffs to their damage procs to bring them more in line with other adept classes.
Blaze
Heat Flash: 33% chance to deal 1.6x damage (was 20%)
Bonfire: Kills grant +4% power (was +2%)
Raised Fortitude aptitude to 50% from 20%
Raised Dexterity aptitude to 30% from 25%
Firelord
Magmatic Flux: 33% chance to deal 2x damage (was 20%)
Raised Fortitude aptitude to 50% from 10%
With the Surge already functioning as a strong support class due to their 3 range chain (something that will become much more useful with the dodge changes), they are receiving some small aptitude bonuses to help Surges continue to function as they reach whatever T3 is chosen.
Surge
Raised Magic aptitude to 40% from 35%
Raised Luck aptitude to 50% from 40%
Eye of the Storm: 35% chance to guarantee a hit and increase crit by 25% (was 25%)
Reveries needed a big boost given how poor all the adepts’ defensive capabilities are, and additional strength should allow them to compete with the gale as a good physical option heading into all 4 T2 classes. With the lowered percentage on their lifesteal and the changes to dodge, Reverie should fit more nicely into their niche in 1.5.
Reverie
Strength Aptitude raised to 45% from 35%
Defense Aptitude raised to 50% from 40%
HP Aptitude raised to 45% from 35%
Speed Aptitude reduced to 10% from 15%
Astral Seeker
Cosmic Tides: 30% chance to heal for 20% max hp and bypass 25% of resistances (was 35% chance to heal for 10%)
Aspects
Vosh’s Sanguination
Advanced stats increased by 10% of max HP, max bonus of 10 (was uncapped)
Darmena’s Kiss
Swaps 50% of crit and power (was 100%)