Today we take a look into the upcoming class refresh for the Dire Lord. We will take a short break from the class refresh details and then resume again with more details on the other classes. As a reminder: what you see reflected below is meant to be a high-level conceptual overview of where we are taking each of these classes. Many details, like the level or skill requirements and effects for the different class and mastery abilities, are expected to change and fluctuate as we go through testing before the update releases. We are looking forward to everyone’s feedback once our public test realm is available, to help us with dialing all those details in so that each class feels fully realized, distinctive, and fun to play.
The Dire Lord
The Dire Lord is a proficient combatant that is known for their swift and brutal melee attacks and their relentless self-healing. But while battling their enemy in a corporeal sense, Dire Lords are also waging war in the imagination of their foe. By infiltrating the essence of a being, the Dire Lord can ravage their enemy with horrifying phantoms, alter the properties of their essence and even steal their essence completely. By mastering Essence manipulation, the Dire Lord is able to wield their own blood in battle, using it to replenish themselves or to assail their enemies from the inside out.
Primary Role: Tank (Nightmare)
Secondary Role: Physical DPS (Carnage)
Available Races: Human, Halfling, Ogre, Dark Myr, Skar
Weapons: Simple and Martial Slashing Weapons. Some Exotic Weapons unlocked at high skill levels Armor: Up to Light Plate
Class Mechanics
Blood Debt: As Dire Lord’s take incoming damage, a portion of that damage will be converted into Blood Debt. Instead of taking this damage immediately, the damage from the Blood Debt is applied over time. The higher your Blood Debt, the higher each tick of Blood Debt damage will get. This allows the Dire Lord to more easily survive high-damage attacks by spreading out the damage from them over a longer period of time.
Additionally, Dire Lords will have several ways to reduce or heal their Blood Debt, and damage from Blood Debt alone will not be able to kill a Dire Lord, but can reduce the Dire Lord to a single point of Health. Alternatively, several abilities, and the Carnage Dire Lord, benefit greatly from higher Blood Debt and may be incentivized to drive their Blood Debt higher in combat.
Weapon Skills
Weapon skills represent proficiency with different types of weapons. They control which weapons can be wielded, and the skill level impacts both the chance to hit opponents and the damage dealt when using that weapon type. Weapon skills also determine which techniques can be used with a given weapon. At extremely high levels, a weapon skill may grant access to an exotic version of that weapon type or unlock additional benefits.
• Sword
• Great Sword
• Axe
• Great Axe
• Hand to Hand
• Whip*
* Weapon type that will be implemented in future updates.
Combat Skills
Combat skills control the effectiveness of various aspects of combat, as well as the effectiveness of class abilities. High levels in combat skills may help unlock additional abilities or mastery selections for the character to use.
• Dodge
• Parry
Spell Skills
Spell skills control the effectiveness of magical abilities. High levels in spell skills may help unlock additional abilities or mastery selections for the character to use.
• Corruption
• Fortification
• Enervation
• Manifestation
• Augmentation
Base Class Abilities
Dire Lord Abilities focus on raw, terrifying power, and the manipulation of essence and blood.
Note: This is not a full list of Dire Lord abilities available within the game and is intended only to provide an overview of the class. Many of these abilities have upgrades and variations that become available as the character levels up.
Ability | Description |
|---|---|
Abyssal Touch | Drain life from your target equal to your missing Health and deal damage equal to half life absorbed. |
Corrupt Blood | Deal Fire damage over time to your target. Becomes stronger when applied with higher Blood Debt. |
Devour Strength | Drain some of the target’s Strength and grant it to yourself. |
Life Tap | Deal Curse damage to your target and heal yourself for a portion of the damage dealt. |
Provoking Phantoms | Affect an enemy’s mind with relentless apparitions. When you strike the enemy in combat, Provoking Phantoms will gain 1 stack. Each additional stack will increase the threat you generate on the target. |
Devour Dexterity | Drain some of the target’s Dexterity and grant it to yourself. |
Thresh | Slash the target, dealing Physical damage and inflicting Bleeding Essence, cause them to bleed rapidly for a short time. |
Devour Presence | Drain some of the target’s Presence and grant it to yourself. |
Blood State: Nightmarish | Manifest a nightmarish visage, causing additional threat every time you deal damage. |
Blood Fiend | Gain a small amount of healing from all of your physical attacks, OR activate the effect to reduce some of your Blood Debt with each strike while the activated effect lasts. |
Dark Revenge | Counterattack with a vicious strike after receiving spell damage. |
Leaden Blood | Progressively slows your target’s movement speed until they are rooted to the ground for a short time. |
Deafening Whisper | Interrupt an enemy’s spellcasting for a short time. |
Blood State: Torrential Veins | Empower your blood flow, increasing the amount of damage converted to Blood Debt. |
Dire Grip | Pull nearby enemies to your location and root them in place. |
Harmshield | For a short time, reflect a portion of incoming spell damage back at your attackers in the form of Curse damage. |
Splatter | Spread the Essence Bleed from Thresh on your primary target to other nearby enemies. |
Spiky Bloodcoat | For a short time, reflect a portion of incoming physical damage back at your attackers in the form of Curse damage. |
Essence Harvester | Rip into your enemy with corruption running through your blade, dealing damage and healing a portion of your Blood Debt. |
Call of the Dire | Reduce your target’s movement speed and force them to walk towards you, unable to resist. |
Blood State: Famished | Enter a bloody frenzy, increasing your chance to critically hit, and causing you to be healed for each critical hit while active. |
Imposing Visage | Instill a primal dread in your opponents, forcing them to flee for a short time. |
Darkfall | Sacrifice a portion of your health to reduce the enemy’s resistance to magic and destroy a portion of their Mana over a short time. |
Canopy of Blood | Sacrifice a portion of your health to shield your group members from damage for a short time. |
Essence Thief | Manifest at the location of an enemy and deal Curse damage to them. |
Haunting Blade | Deal physical damage and purge a beneficial magical effect from your enemy. |
Purge Essence | Sacrifice a portion of your health to cleanse yourself of Poison and Disease effects. |
Dire Lord Mastery
Dire Lords have two primary mastery branches that they can specialize into: Nightmare and Carnage.
Note that the Mastery abilities described below are intended as highlights and examples and do not represent the full list of Mastery options that will be available for each specialization.
Nightmare Mastery Examples
The Nightmare Dire Lord is a dark bulwark that turns pain into power and locks enemies in a grip they cannot escape.
Mastery | Description |
|---|---|
Ability Unlock: Terrormancer | The duration of Fear effects on you is dramatically reduced. |
Ability Unlock: Relentless Vitality | The lower your health becomes, the stronger your natural health regeneration becomes. |
Phantom Recoil | When a target afflicted by Provoking Phantoms hits you with a melee attack, it suffers a small burst of Curse retaliation damage. This damage scales with stacks of Provoking Phantoms. |
Debt-Fed Apparitions | While your Blood Debt is above 60%, each strike against a target afflicted with Provoking Phantoms will grant 2 stacks instead of 1. |
Blood Shock | Corrupt Blood now does initial damage when it lands. Additionally, each instance of damage will generate a small amount of bonus Threat. |
Calculated Infusion | When you are healed by Life Tap, 20% of the healing amount will be applied as Blood Debt reduction instead of healing you directly. Additionally, Life Tap is now immune to spell pushback. |
Marked Blood | If Vital Cage absorbs or reduces Spell Damage, you gain increased resistance to the same spell school for a short duration. |
Unyielding Leech | Using your Life Tap when you are below 50% health will reduce the damage you take for several seconds. |
Baleful Ground | If Dire Grip pulls 2 or more enemies it will create a 6m area of effect beneath you for 5 sec. This zone increases your threat generation while you remain in the area of effect. |
Bloody Provocation | Reduce the initial damage of Thresh, but increase the Threat generated by the attack. |
Ruinous Carving | Blood Fiend’s passive healing effect when using two-handed weapons is increased. Additionally, the threat generated by offhand attacks when using the activated ability is increased. |
Immutable Call | Call of the Dire is now effective against Iron-Willed enemies. |
Nightmare Crown | A portion of the threat you generate when attacking a target inflicted by Provoking Phantoms is converted into Blood Debt reduction. |
Carnage Mastery Examples
The Carnage Dire Lord is a berserker of blood and ruin, turning their damaged bodies into raw offensive power.
Mastery | Description |
|---|---|
Ability Unlock: Bloodrot | Usable on targets afflicted with Bleeding Essence. Infect the wound, increasing the bleed damage per tick and causing the wound to burst at the end of its duration, consuming all stacks of Bleeding Essence and dealing higher damage based on the number of Bleeding Essence stacks consumed. |
Ability Unlock: Sanguine Blast | Sacrifice a portion of your Health to form a blast of power from your own Essence, dealing Curse damage. Damage taken from Sanguine Blast will add to your Blood Debt. |
Ability Unlock: Carnage-Soaked Adversary | You gain bonus damage and other ability-specific advantages the lower your health and the higher your Blood Debt. |
Ability Unlock: Edge of Midnight | Deal damage to your foe and gain a stack of Malefic Power, increasing your own damage but reducing your armor for a short time. Stacks up to 2 times.. Can be used multiple times. |
Debt-Fed Affliction | Increase the amount of bonus damage applied to Corrupt Blood based on your Blood Debt. |
Open the Vein | Thresh is now able to apply up to 5 stacks of Bleeding Essence, increasing the damage per tick with each stack. |
Baleful Pact | A portion of the damage inflicted by your Bleeding Essence, up to a cap, will contribute to your Blood Debt. Additionally, increase the damage bonus effect of Carnage-Soaked Adversary. |
Bloody Chain | When Splatter spreads Bleeding Essence to nearby enemies, newly afflicted targets will inherit the same stack count of the original target if the Essence Bleed was at 3 stacks or more. |
Memory of Rot | When Bloodrot bursts, the target will take increased Physical damage for a short period of time. |
Overdrawn Malice | The malefic power generated by Edge of Midnight now grants more of a physical damage increase, but further increases incoming damage as well. |
At the Brink | The Famished Bloodstate now grants additional critical hit chance and increased healing on critical hits while you are below a certain health threshold or your Blood Debt is above a certain point. |
Waning Mind | Darkfall also dramatically reduces the outgoing spell damage of the target’s next damaging spell. |
Key Changes for Dire Lords
With the Combat and Progression Update, the Dire Lord class is evolving in the following ways:
Dire Lords will now be able to equip Light Plate armor.
Essence has been removed and replaced with the Blood Debt mechanic.
Mastery selections focused on leaning into and empowering defensive abilities or offensive abilities.
Unique abilities unlocked through mastery selections.
Around the Team – What we’ve been working on this week
Design and Narrative
Continuing population of Kosa Ull in Badia de Cara
Baseline testing for Unified NPC templates and core combat mechanics
Continuing first pass on itemization updates for Combat and Progression
Continuing work on Mastery for Cleric, Druid, Shaman
Prep work for Rogue, Ranger, and Monk Mastery
Continued work on NPCs and Dialogue for the Port of Rulun
Worldbuilding and Environment Art
Finalizing dressing for Mawnok villages
Finalizing Rulun building interiors
Expanded set dressing for undersea biomes
Concept work for Faerthale City structural elements (walls, gates, walkways/bridges, and towers)
Final feedback pass on small player boat design
Character Art and Animation
Finalized animations for Mawnoks
Beginning animations for Sharks
Beginning animations for Hydryn
Continued modeling/texture work for minor/ambient BDC creatures
Detailed modeling/texture work for Siren
Programming
Continued implementation of combat formula changes for Combat and Progression Update
Beginning implementation of additional item stat options
Finishing hookup of Mastery persist layer and UI functionality
Finalizing Mail system UI, database hookup, and initial testing
Finishing initial implementation of 3D NPC movement system