Combat Reforged!

We're proud to release our latest update to the game, 1.6.0, which brings a whole suite of changes to combat. Batter your foes, unleash the power of your artefacts and enjoy enhanced manoeuvrability with Hand of Fate 2: Combat Reforged!

Bash Abilities

• All armours now have Bash abilities
• Bash abilities charge based on number of Defends
• While uncharged, Bash causes a brief stun and scales the duration based on the amount of charge
• Charge resets when a bash is used
• Improved responsiveness of 'bash'
• 5x existing armour cards now have new tokens to unlock to upgrade them
• 3x existing shield cards now have new tokens to unlock to upgrade them
• Number of Defends to charge bash degrade in combat, similarly to weapon ability charge

Bash Types

• Stun Bash: Cause Stun to a single target
• Stun Blast: Causes Stun to an area
• Knockdown Bash: Causes Knockdown to a single target
• Confuse Bash: Causes Confuse, enemies will fight on the player side for a short time
• Bleed Bash: Causes damage over time, and slows the enemy attacks and movement
• Freeze Bash: Causes Freeze to a single target

Artefacts

• Cooldowns on all artefacts have been greatly reduced
• Improved the responsiveness of other actions after using an artefact.

Horn Artefacts

• Horns no longer lose their charge, instead they have a set number of uses per combat
• There is a warm-up after the combat begins until the item can be used
• Some items have been slightly rebalanced to accommodate these changes
  • Cry of Victory (horn): 1 once per combat
  • Heroes Call (horn): 3 uses per combat
  • Will of the Emperor (horn): 3 uses per combat
  • Will of the Northerner (changed from potion to horn): 3 uses per combat

Apprentice Mode

• Option to enable/disable in the settings menu
• While active, scores are not uploaded for Endless Adventures.
• Auto Finishers: Attacking in the direction of an enemy in Knockdown automatically performs the finisher.
• Auto Riposte: Successfully defending with Light or One-Handed Weapons automatically ripostes.
• Weapon Charge: Weapon charge does not reset when hit in combat
• Increased Damage: Weapons deal increased damage in combat

General Combat

• Optional enemy health bars - availble in the settings menu (recommended!)
• Green and Red attack window consistency
• Light (green) attacks can now be evaded
• Evade
  • Player no longer gets stuck when evading into other characters
  • Evade occurs in the direction pressed
  • Improved evade distance consistency

• Weapon Ability Charge - the number of hits required to perform weapon abilities has been reduced on some equipment allowing those abilities to be used more frequently
  
• Reduced 'stickiness' after defending/riposting - only the riposte autotargets the defender, subsequent attacks can be redirected bashed on input direction
  
• Increased chance of hits causing Knockdown to low health enemies
  
• Dual Wielded ripostes will cause a short stun if the enemy attempt to counter-attack (see Enemy Rebalance)
  
• Increased responsiveness of followup actions after using an artefact
  

Equipment and Blessing Rebalance

• General
  • Faction Riposte bonuses deal more damage: from 125 to 150%
  • Faction Bane bonuses deal more damage: from 125 to 135% (Holy is 150%)

• The following items and blessings no longer trigger from the Campfire encounter:
  • Armour of Gluttony
  • Brigand's Shield
  • Morton's Magic Door
  • Plentiful Harvest

• Wind's Return (light weapons)
  - Weapon Ability: New targeting system for weapon ability
  
• Harvest Blade (heavy weapon)
  - Reaping Strike: Ability bonus excludes Corrupted and/or Undead
  - Food Bounty: Bonus excludes finishers against Corrupted.
  
• The Peeler (heavy weapon)
  - Platinum: This weapon is now Platinum.
  
• Last Hope (one-handed weapon)
  - Cursed Strike: Fixed a bug where the ability was adding +5 Damage per curse instead of +10
  - Brimsone: This weapon is now Brimstone.
  
• Armour of Gluttony (armour)
  - Food Defence: Defence bonus is now a % increase of current defence value, rather than adding a fixed value, i.e. +30% Defence, not +3, when Defence is 10
  - Gain Food: Gain +2 food after any encounter where you draw a gain card. Excludes the Campfire encounter.
  
• Platinum Armour (armour)
  - Resist Damage: Reduces damage by 10% regardless of defence value.
  - Defence: Defence has been reduced from 30 to 22
  
• The Lord's Diadem (helm):
  - Slow Swing: Fixed a large number of instances where the precision gambit would not swing slower when this item was equipped
  
• Chefs Charm (ring)
  - Healthy Eating: Life received is reduced from double to +50% (rounded up)
  
• Bullseye (ring)
  - Wide Beam: Increases the size of the precision gambit beam even further, same rules apply for multiple zones (see Precision Gambit above)
  
• Mother's Blessing (blessing)
  - Blessed: Only gain a blessing if you have more curses than blessings.
  

Enemy Rebalance

• Thieves Counter-Attacks - Thieves now have a chance to attack immediately after their initial attack is defended - Riposting the initial attack with a Light Weapon causes stun to the Counter-Attacking enemy, and charges Bash by +1 - The following thieves have been updated: Thug, Silencer, and Assassin
• Wraith - Wraith's now have a warm-up phase before they start casting their drain attack - During this period the Wraith can be interrupted to prevent the spell being cast - The Wraith has an offscreen indicator during this warm-up phase
• Mages - Mage's have a warm-up phase before they start casting their magic pool attacks - During this period the Mage can be interrupted to prevent the spell being cast - The Mage's has an offscreen indicator during this warm-up phase
• Northerners - The timing window to the first hit of the Retaliate Attack has been increased - The following Northerners have been updated: Warrior, Berserker, and Tyrant

Endless

• Goblin Clips have been removed as Endless Adventure bosses
• Goblin Chiefs have been added as an Endless Adventure boss
• Escape duration for Clips in the Endless boss fight have been increased

Companions

• Ariadne - Attack Damage: Ariadne causes more damage in combat - Armour Breaker: Increased armour damage on this ability - Melee Tank: Ariadne causes more general damage to armour when she attacks - Gauntlet: Platinum card now has even more health
• Colbjorn - Fire: Platinum card now deals more damage to Northerners
• Estrella - Combo Attack: Estrella reliably causes Knockdown on the final hit of her combo attack - Blunderbuss: Estrella's firearm now causes more damage when her card is Platinum
• Malaclypse - Ranged Magic: Spells now ignore defence as intended - Overcharged: Increased the damage of the shield AoE