BARBARIAN'S WRATH OUT NOW!

Greetings Defenders,

The Barbarian’s Wrath, Update 2.3, has stormed into Etheria! This update heralds the arrival of the Barbarian, a pure damage hero powerhouse; huge changes to item progression and gearing; shard changes to get you out of the inventory and into the battle; and updates to many important systems. Grab your axes, it’s time to slash through some barbaric patch notes!

https://youtu.be/FMSJV2vNb1w

NEW HERO: THE BARBARIAN!

“Hailing from the mountains of Etheria, the Barbarian is a notorious warrior king that can wield the powers of Wrath and Fury to crush his enemies. Becoming an unstoppable flurry of muscle and steel, the Barbarian can hurl himself into battle becoming a whirlwind of death. His foes tremble at the mighty shouts of this tremendous warrior leaping in to crush his enemies.”

The Barbarian is the first hero to have two unique resources: Wrath and Fury. Wrath is gained whenever the Barbarian deals damage, and Fury is gained whenever damage is received. In order to put out the most damage you are going to be in the fray constantly. Stance dancing and balancing your Wrath and Fury are your keys to being an unstoppable force!

The Barbarian is a hero with only damage abilities — four abilities and four stances that modify his play style:

Furious Slash

• A mid ranged Fury resource spender that pierces enemies but does not trigger weapon shard activation abilities.

Staggering Shout

• A mid ranged frontal cone debuff ability whose effects are modified by the Barbarian’s primary active stance.

Whirlwind

• A powerful persistent AOE damage ability that gains different abilities based on the primary active stance.

Hawk Strike

• A high damage short ranged attack that consumes all the Barbarian’s Wrath resource when used.

Tornado Stance

• Increases movement speed, attack rate, and jump height, but primary attacks deal less damage. With Tornado Stance active, Staggering Shout and Whirlwind will slow.

Turtle Stance

• Reduces attack speed and less mobility, but takes less damage and become immune to crowd control. Staggering Shout gains a stun and Whirlwind withers enemies.

Siphon Stance

• Turned damage dealt with primary attacks into self-healing. Siphon Stance causes Staggering Shout to apply a lifesteal debuff to affected enemies, converting Whirlwind damage dealt into self-healing.

Lightning Stance

• Gain bonus storm damage to primary attacks and chain storm damage every third attack. Each hit causes self-inflicting damage. Staggering Shout causes enemies to take more damage and Whirlwind gains chain storm damage.

Along with the Barbarian are a lot of visual additions. There are the four material effect costumes and the terrifying Blood Reaver costume with five additional accessories, twenty-seven different axes, and custom enemy death animations for smaller enemies. Send them gobus flying!

Loot Revamp

Item Progression
Items and upgrades produced a lot of issues for players as they progress through Onslaught and Chaos Trials. With this update, we took a good hard look at items and progression. Players wanting to progress the fastest used a system called “muling” to have a steadier stream of gear upgrades drop. Now, mules are a thing of the past! Every piece of equipment that drops is now based off of the highest gear score you’ve seen drop. Not picked up, not equipped, but dropped. All of this is tracked behind the scenes, taking all of the spreadsheet calculating and muling away, so you can get into the action sooner!

Gear Score

We mentioned above that gear is tracked off of the highest gear score item you’ve seen drop. Gear score is a new take on a previous system used to display an item’s power — iPwr. This system previously did not reflect the strength of an item correctly, causing items that may not be upgrades to have a higher iPwr than equipped items. This affected item progression and the general flow of how players were intended to progress.

Hero and Champion Score

Hero and Champion Score are additional ways to help measure the strength of your heroes’ gear! Hero Score is the average of all the gear equipped to any specific hero, and is shown on your hero cards as shown above. Champion Score is the highest Hero Score among all of your heroes, indicated with a crown above your hero cards (and a smaller one on the hero with the highest Hero Score). These scores are used to let you know when you’re ready for growing challenges you encounter as you progress. To better smooth out progression, different Chaos Trials are unlocked once you reach the appropriate Champion Score.

Auto-Equip Gear and Shards

There is a lot to learn in Dungeon Defenders II in order to become the greatest Defender of Etheria! While gear maketh the Defender, it can be a lot to manage when learning the intricacies of every hero and enemy. To help through this process, we’ve created an Auto-Equip feature for both gear and Shards. Both buttons (located below your relics) have you confirm if you want to use this feature, and if confirmed, equips the highest Gear Score for every slot. For relics, it will discern between a blockade and towers, focusing on equipping Totems for blockades and Medallions/Marks for all other towers.

If you wish to only Auto-Equip the highest gear score per slot, you will be able to select the slot and “Auto-Equip Slot”. On PC this is bound to "U" by default; on PlayStation 4 by pressing “”; and on Xbox One by pressing “”.

Shards

Previously, Shards were placed into Shard Slots located on equipment. This system caused Defenders to spend more time in their inventory, moving shards around any time they received an upgrade or wanted to change their build than we liked. When progressing for the first time, or after gaining Ancient Power, this meant a lot of time spent managing your inventory.

In this update, Shard Slots are now equipped on equipment slots directly to your heroes! This means as you receive upgrades, you equip them and your shards stay put. You can still equip up to three shards per slot. However, all three slots will be active only if you have the appropriate tier equipped. Slot activation follows the same conventions it previously did, with Uncommon activating the first slot, Epic activating the first and second slots, and Mythical and Legendary activating all three.

In this update, shards that are on equipment already equipped to your heroes are automatically migrated to those heroes. You login and continue playing without having to manage the shards they were previously wearing. However, shards slotted into equipment that is in your inventory will be removed from the gear. If your inventory is full, the shard(s) are placed into Shards of Containment and sent to the Scavenger.

Incursion Weapons

Incursion weapons are very unique items in the game as they each contain unique passives that previously took up a Shard slot. With this Shard change, we wanted to make sure that Incursion weapons were still something players wanted to acquire. Now, all Incursion weapons will retain their passives AND have three Shard slots. We took a balance pass at these weapons as well, which we’ve included below.

What Happens To Stored Shards?

For users that do not have enough inventory space to hold all of the shards that was previously attached to gear, we've created the Shard of Containment. This Shard is a tool used to segway Defenders into our new Shard system while reducing stress of losing items many of you have farmed. Any shards previously in equipment that cannot fit in your full inventory with the Shard migration are placed into a Shard of Containment and sent to the Scavenger.

The Shard of Containment holds up to 16 shards before another one is created. These are located on the Scavenger and NEVER expire. Shards will be grouped by their upgrade level, bundling the highest Shards together, and the lowest Shards together. This makes it easier to decide which Shard of Containment to open in order to get all of your most used shards.

In order to use a Shard of Containment, you must have the amount of inventory slots open equal to the number of Shards located within the Shard of Containment. If you have 8 Shards, in order to open a Shard of Containment you’ll need 8 inventory slots.

Shards of Containment are a tool we’re using as we bring in our new Shard equipping system. There are more inventory management changes coming down the road!

New User Experience

There’s a lot for new Defenders to learn in order to properly defend Etheria, and it is not an easy undertaking! This update introduces a New User Experience to help acclimate new players understand the basics of the game without getting bogged down on reading tons of details and instructions.

There are a myriad of changes that go along with this:

• New floating instructional text!
• Tutorial level replaced with new animated interactions with Betsy!
• Huntress available immediately
• Ascension UI locked until 50

Mananode Changes
Green mana allocation is now completely different! Mananode chests are a thing of the past, here’s what you see now:

• Green mana is now automatically distributed by Mananode itself at the beginning of the Build Phase!
• There is no longer a green mana cap. There is a green mana bar that goes to 2000 green mana. If you go above this amount, the bar starts to fill again!
• Mana and gold collection radiuses are TRIPLED during the build phase. No more pesky out of reach mana!

These changes are an additional measure to allow Defenders to do the things they enjoy the most: building and fighting!

General Changes

• When you create a hero, you can now choose to create them at your highest hero’s level or at level 1.
• On gamepads, hitting Right Button + D-Pad Down will open the Inventory.
• The D-Pad can now be used on gamepads to navigate the left side of the inventory.
• Added East and West descriptors to subcores for Throne Room maps.
• Added new Loading Screen text:
  • “Mastery provides some of the toughest challenges in all of Etheria but rewards you with powerful Hyper Shards, golden pets, flair, and more!”
  • “The stars you earn across different Chaos difficulties in Mastery pool together. Tackle maps in any order that you want to unlock rewards!”
  • “Defender Packs contain costumes, accessories, exclusive flair, and much more! Earn them by achieving victory on your current highest Onslaught floor!”
  • “Feeling lucky? Rerolling Defender Packs gives you another chance at earning rare rewards!”
  • “Beating Incursions allows you to purchase exotic weapons from the Wayfarer.”
  • “Got eggs? Visit the Stable Boy in the Town HUB or Tavern to hatch new pets!”
  • “Pet eggs that expire in your inventory will turn into resources that you can use to evolve your pets.”
  • “Get your style on! You can access the Cosmetics Manager from the Inventory.”
  • “Climbing higher in Onslaught and earning Ascension Levels allows you to unlock your Ancient Power!”
  • “Need a boost? You can spend gold and Defender Medals to upgrade equipment and shards!”

Defender Packs

We’ve added a slew of new costumes and flair to our Defender Packs:
Flair (crowns):

• Ebonfire Blaze
• Winner’s Crown

Flair (Wings):

• Gilded Honorwings
• Earth Drake Wings
• Great Eagle Wings
• Hive Strike Wings
• Gargoyle Wings

Flair (Sets):

• Bonemancer Set: Bonemancer Crown and Bonemancer Wings
• Bramblewood Set: Bramblewood Crown and Bramblewood Wings

Costumes:

• Gilded Chrome EV2
• Rosen Chrome EV2
• Amethysium Chrome EV2
• Verdanite Chrome EV2
• Carbide Chrome EV2

Incursion Weapons

Incursion Weapons maintain their previous effects as passives with the new Shard changes. With maintaining these passives, we took a balance pass to adjust some slightly overpowered passives, while buffing underperforming passives.

Molten Tome
Now deals:

• 1000% (previously 950%) Ability Power per Meteor.
• 850% (previously 650%) Ability Power per Lava Fissure.
• 200% (remains the same) Ability Power burning over 5 seconds.

Haunted Halberd

• Summons up to 5 (previously 3) Halberds that deal 250% (previously 150%) Ability Power.

North Pole

• Secondary Projectiles now deal 350% (previously 1000%) Hero Damage.

Shadowflame

• Now hits up to 4 targets dealing 75% (previously 135%) Hero Damage.

Glaive of the Storms

• Storm deals 1000% (previously 1500%) Ability Power as Storm Damage.
• Bolts deal 350% (previously 500%) Ability Power as Storm Damage.

All Incursion Weapons not listed here will have their max upgraded shard values applied to their new passives. For instance, Terra Blade’s passive will pierce up to 3 targets dealing 100% Hero Damage.

Hero Updates

Barbarian
Abilities

• Furious Slash: Mid-range attack that pierces enemies.
  • Cost: 5 Fury
  • Cooldown: 2 seconds

• Tornado Stance: Hit faster, move faster, jump higher, but deal less damage.
  • Cost: 6 Fury per second.
  • Cooldown: None.

• Turtle Stance: Take less damage, become crowd-control immune, but move slower.
  • Cost: 6 Fury per second.
  • Cooldown: None.

• Siphon Stance: Gain Health Points while attacking.
  • Cost: 6 Fury per second.
  • Cooldown: None.

• Lightning Stance: Attacks gain additional lightning damage, but self-inflict damage.
  • Cost: 10 Wrath per second.
  • Cooldown: None.

• Staggering Shout: Debuff enemies in a frontal cone.
  • Cost: 15 Wrath.
  • Cooldown: 5 seconds.

• Whirlwind: Deal Area of Effect damage to enemies within melee range.
  • Cost: 26 Wrath per second.
  • Cooldown: None

• Hawk Strike: Deal massive damage in a small area. The more Wrath consumed, the higher the damage.
  • Cost: All Wrath.
  • Cooldown: 10 seconds.

• Zephyr’s Warpath: Increase movement speed in Whirlwind by 5%-105%.
  • Found in Campaign.
  • Equipment Slot: Boots

• Full Shell Ahead: Increases movement speed while in Turtle Stance by 25-525.
  • Found in Chaos I.
  • Equipment Slot: Boots.

• Turtle Power: Increase Damage Protection while in Turtle Stance by 1%-21%.
  • Found in Chaos II.
  • Equipment Slot: Chest.

• Cowabunga!
  
• Echoing Shout: Increases the duration of Staggering Shout debuffs by 0.5s-4.5s.
  • Found in Chaos III.
  • Equipment Slot: Helmet.

• Draining Strikes: Increase the healing from Siphon Stance by 5%-25%.
  • Found in Chaos IV
  • Equipment Slot: Helmet.

• Maelstrom: While Lightning Stance is active, the Barbarian's attacks have a 5%-25% chance to drench enemies, stunning them for 1.5s-3.5s.
  • Found in Chaos V.
  • Equipment Slot: Weapons.

• Talon Strike: Hawk Strike now stuns for 2s-4.5.
  • Found in Chaos V.
  • Equipment Slot: Weapons.

• Boiling Blood: Causes the Barbarian to take 20%-2% of his Max Health as damage, every 5s during combat phase gaining Fury.
  • Found in Chaos VI.
  • Equipment Slot: Chest.

• Shellshock: While Turtle Stance is active the Barbarian's attacks wither enemies hit for 3-13
• seconds reducing their damage to 75%-35%.
  • Found in Chaos VI.
  • Equipment Slot: Weapons.

• Ride the Lightning: Increase the damage bonus of Lightning Stance by 1%-21%.
  • Found in Chaos VII.
  • Equipment Slot: Gloves.

• Wreckless: The Barbarian deals up to 0.5%-20.5% bonus damage based upon current Wrath.
  • Found in Chaos VII.
  • Equipment Slot: Gloves.

Bug Fixes

• Adjusted Dark Arts Apprentice green clouds effect.
• Fixed issues causing floors to appear black.
• Fixed an issue causing crashes when opening extremely large numbers of Defender Packs.
• Adjusted the material on the Yesteryear Nymph costume.
• Fixed an issue on Nimbus Reach with the Victory Chest always being Powerful (green).
• Fixed an issue on Dead Road in death areas where character models would fall through the map.
• Fixed an issue with Direct Command not castable on multiple Skeletal Orc towers.
• Fixed an issue where Slime Pits were not dealing damage to enemies affected by the Power Block mutator.
• “To HUB” now says “To Town”.
• Fixed an issue being able to play as a deleted hero.
• Fixed an issue where Haunting Shard was not showing the correct VFX.
• Fixed an issue when using a controller that would lock NPC/Object interactions.
• Fixed an issue when multiple cores are active and one dies, it would show a dead core with 75% health value.
• Fixed a split screen issue where core health bars were not displaying correctly.
• Fixed a frame drop issue when inspecting a billboard and then looking away from it.
• Fixed an issue with Betsy’s Curse zones disappearing when switching heroes.
• Fixed an issue with The Abyss Lord’s primary attack SFX.
• Fixed a split screen issue where health bars for Player 1 were appearing much larger than intended.

Known Issues

• Inputs were reset for all platforms.
• Sometimes you have to hit “Auto-Equip Relic” a few times before it works.
• When using the All Bags option in the inventory and sorting items by Weapons, it will cause all items in the inventory to disappear. Purely a visual issues and toggling inventory bags will refresh the inventory screen and they will reappear.
• Occasionally the Auto Equip function doesn't prioritize the highest gear score items first.
• Occasionally players will get stuck on a black screen when trying to load into the Outdoor HUB. Restarting the game will fix it (or if you know where the menu options are in the escape menu you can click the Leave game button which will still work if you can find it).
• Occasionally when booting up the game with the controller already active, the navigation focus will be on one of the social media links to the side instead of the main menu options.
• The keybindings that appear throughout the tutorial maps don't show the correct button icons with custom keybindings set.
• The icons of the towers on the mini-maps of the tutorial maps are different colors.
• Some of the weapon firing rates did not carry over correctly.