The open world and a fight that asks more of you

Version 0.27 changes how a fight feels, from the first goblin to the last boss. Act I now has an open world to walk, elites guard themselves with locks only you can open, every class has two verbs, Ember runes drop, the five act bosses fight in rounds, and Heat comes with rules and a score.

Out of the north gate

Act I no longer stops at the town wall. Three wide areas of open ground wait beyond Hearthold, each one a whole map to cross in any direction: the Bramblewold, a clearing in a wood; the Dig-Scars, torn earth where the goblins dig for something old; and Grukk's Marches, where Grukk's warband holds the moor. Groves and boulders stand between long stretches of open grass, and woods, cliffs, earthworks and fences at the edge of each map keep you in. For now you walk out from the Adventure sheet (The Bramblewold, Walk out); the town's own north gate will lead there later.

• Waystones. Each area has one. Touch it to relight it, and from any relit waystone you can travel to the others you have lit, or home to Hearthold.
• Dungeon doors in the wild. Bramble Hollow and the Rat-Kicker Tunnels in the Bramblewold, the Sunken Crypt and the Gallows Hill Catacombs in the Dig-Scars, and Grukk's Warcamp at the end of the Marches are doors you walk up to. Stand on one out of combat and it asks whether to go in; when the dungeon ends, a button takes you back to its door. A co-op party can't go through a door yet.
• Roads out. A road leaves each area toward the next. Stand on it with your party close by and it asks if you want to travel on.
• Things to find. Goblin camps behind their palisades, a shrine to free, ruins that spring ambushes, a ritual circle you can stop before it finishes, a beacon to hold against three waves, a thief to catch before he escapes, a lair, and a named brute in each area: Snagtooth in the Bramblewold, Gallows Gert in the Dig-Scars and Auditor Skrit at the Tithe Ring in the Marches. Camps, rituals and beacons pay chests, and a place you clear stays quiet for an hour.
• Packs wake when they see you. Come within a few steps, in view, and a pack wakes. A question mark shows over a foe a moment before it notices you, and backing away in time cancels it. Your sellswords and pets never wake a pack on their own.
• Emberfall. Every hour one of the three areas burns: it turns ember-red, its name says Emberfall, every pack gains a Champion, the foes stand a level higher, and its chests and guaranteed drops step up a rarity.
• The map. The minimap and the full map pin the waystones (gold once relit), the roads out, the dungeon doors, camps, shrines, ruins and the boss ring, each one named once you have found it. A place you have cleared fades, and an area in Emberfall wears an ember wash. Tap a relit waystone beside you on the full map to travel.

The open world has no quest line yet. See Still cooking below.

Fights that ask something of you

From Act II, a pack's first elite wears a lock, written as a line of words under its health bar. While it is locked the elite takes only a fraction of the damage from everyone. Open the lock and the elite is Broken: helpless for three or four seconds and taking 30% more damage, until it locks again. Only you can open a lock. Your sellswords hold the pack and clear the adds.

• Stone Skin cracks each time one of your class's big moves lands on it (one crack a second at most). Three cracks and it opens.
• Possessed winds up a yellow charge every few seconds. Break it: its Poise fills twice as fast during the wind-up. Left alone, it charges you.
• Cursed casts a blue curse at a hero in sight. Interrupt it with a skill, a hard control or one of your class's big moves. Left alone, the curse hits hard, leaves you Hexed and lets the elite mend.
• Warded (fire, cold or lightning) wears a ward: your hits wear it down twice as fast with the matching element and half as fast with anything else. Worn through, the elite is Broken.
• Acts II and III roll only Stone Skin and Warded, Acts IV and V add Possessed, and Cursed waits for Pyre I and Heat. Bosses, mini-bosses and Heralds never wear a lock.
• Modifiers beside the lock (Fire Enchanted, Cold Enchanted, Lightning Enchanted, Mana Burn, Spectral Hit, Teleportation, Multiple Shots) say what else the elite does, and a pack's leader wears an aura: Might, Conviction or Holy Freeze.

Your hands lead

• Nothing swings by itself. On a phone the attack button holds your main attack; on a mouse you hold the left click on a foe; on a pad you hold A. Let go and your hero stops attacking.
• Your own hits power your gear. On-hit powers from gear, Brand, legendaries, uniques and talents fire from hits you press: your skills and your held attack, not damage ticks, other powers, free casts, summons or pets. Your summons got a small bonus of their own in place of copying your on-hit powers.
• Sellswords support. Bringing them no longer makes foes tougher. On an elite, Champion, Warleader, Herald, boss or a pack's healer and leader, your sellswords, pets and summons together can deal only about 30% of the damage (40% while it is Broken), so the rest is yours to finish.

Hits always land

There are no more whiffs. Every attack lands: one that rolls under the foe's Armor Class is a graze that does a fraction of the damage, a natural 1 always grazes, and a natural 20 crits with a golden dice pop. Your class's big payoff moves never graze. A foe's rolled blows reach you the same way, and your armour turns a full hit into a graze, so Armor Class is how often a blow only grazes you. The Fall and Hearthold's siege keep their old hit-or-miss rolls.

Your big moves commit. A payoff skill, or a big hit on a long cooldown, winds up for about half a second, shown as a yellow bar over your head. You can't move or swing while it fills, and nothing is spent until it fires; a stun or a silence lets it go. Channels, drawn shots, dashes, buffs, heals and summons stay instant.

Your class's own dash is your dodge. Cunning Dash, Step of the Wind, Misty Step, Tempest Step, Leaping Slam, Radiant Charge, Called Shot and the rest carry you through blows untouched for their whole flight, and pressing your dash during a wind-up cancels it with nothing spent. Dodge gear is now "of Quickstep": it brings your dash back sooner, and so does the dodge on your gear and traits. No dash in your class? Step away during a wind-up to cancel it, and your gear rolls move speed where Quickstep would be.

Two verbs for every class

Every class has a primer and a payoff. One kind of move primes a foe with a keyword, shown as a chip on its frame: a Rogue's builders leave it Marked, a Paladin's hammers Judged, a Necromancer's spells Rotted. Your big move then cashes the keyword in for a heavy hit and gives a little of your resource back, and for most classes it leaves the foe taking 20% more damage for four seconds. A foe holds one keyword at a time, a new primer replaces it, and it fades after eight seconds. A payoff never primes, so one button pressed alone can't do both: playing your whole kit beats pressing your favourite.

• Rotation tuning. A Rogue finisher under 2 Malice is a weak one, so builders come first. A Monk repeating the same move strikes softer. A Barbarian's payoff is any strike pressed at Peak Rage. A Ranger's near-full draw pays 60% of the burst. A Paladin's Hammerwheel and Sunward Disc build no Oathlight, and for six seconds after an Oathmaul the wheel keeps every hammer. A Fighter with a shield and nothing stowed still swaps weapons to land a Draw Strike.
• Sellswords use the same verbs. Your skill tooltips say which skills prime and which consume.

Every class's keyword, primer and payoff is on the website's Fights page.

Ember runes and runewords

• 24 Ember runes drop from foes, from Soot to Starfire in four tiers, into a rune pouch that takes no bag space. Low runes are common; the high ones come only where the Depths burn hottest, and bosses lean toward them.
• Sockets. Weapons, body armour, helms, shields and foci can drop with sockets (plain bases most often, uniques never). A rune in a socket gives one stat, depending on the item.
• Combine three runes of one kind into the next at the Smithy's Runes tab. Pull runes out for gold and none are destroyed. The Forge can cut one extra socket into any item.
• 37 runewords. Set the right runes in the right order in a plain or uncommon base with exactly that many sockets and it becomes a runeword: a new name, a named power, and a boost to one Spellbook page you already own. Your page picks stay free, and a runeword never unlocks or locks a page.
• Sellswords wear socketed gear and runewords too, and their pages get the boost.
• A loot filter (Settings or the bag) shows or hides drops by rarity, slot, upgrades only and rune tier, and always keeps uniques, legendaries and runeword bases.
• Drops can no longer outrun the Heat they came from: every Heat band has a ceiling on item level, shown on the Effigy card.

Bosses in rounds

The five act bosses (Grukk, Morvaine, Old Gutrot, Seraphel and Vhoruun) fight in rounds you can learn. Each phase goes in a loop: first adds pour in; then comes a move only you can answer; then a window opens where the boss takes full damage. Outside the window it shrugs off most blows (it takes about 40%), and it can't be pushed into its next phase until you have earned a window.

• The answers: stand in a ring with your party, cut down the marked chanters, interrupt a blue cast, or break a yellow guard. Your sellswords can't answer for you.
• Missed it? The boss mends, its adds or the boss grow stronger, or a missed ring blasts everyone. It never wipes you outright.
• Don't dawdle. From about the sixth round the boss grows Stoked, hitting harder and faster, and the arena itself begins to burn.
• The strip under the boss bar shows the phase, the three beats of the loop with the live one filling, and the next step with its countdown.
• Featured drops. Each finale's own legendary is on its dungeon's card and drops about one kill in eight.

Heat as rules, with a score

Past Pyre I the Effigy burns by Heat, and each Pyre band from II up now adds one named rule you read on the Effigy before you go. A rule adds a decision, never more foes, and they stack.

• The Power cap. From Heat 80, Power past 1.6 times what the Depths expect of your class counts at half, so gear alone can't switch the rules off.
• A grade for every clear. A cleared Heat run is graded Bronze, Silver, Gold or Platinum from how it was played: clear time, falls, guards you opened, blue casts you answered and damage taken. A better grade pays more Emberglass.
• Weekly boards. Each Pyre band has a weekly board for the best scores. A run played with Longer warnings is graded but never posts.
• The Ember Swarm is now the survivors mode. Waves keep coming on their own, and about every minute the altar offers three effigies to take (they stack up to five ranks, and a solo run waits while you choose). Each wave sends a Sapper only your own hits can hurt, and if it lives the next wave is Empowered. Sellswords fight uncapped here. The hoard pays for the waves you hold and the picks you take, and the Swarm has its own weekly board.

Controls

• Skills aim at the cursor on a mouse by default, to match the held click that attacks. Automatic aim is still in Settings. A hero left on Automatic only by the old default is switched once to At the cursor; pick Automatic again and it stays.
• Held attacks on every device: the attack button on a phone, the held click on a mouse, A on a pad.

The look

• The run HUD wears the same lettering and gilt frames as the town: your party, pet, target and boss bars, the quest tracker and the corner keys.
• On a phone your pet shows as a small round tile, and the pause menu opens whole on a short screen.
• The Bag, Hero, Party and Pets screens you open in a run now match the town's.
• The run result has folder tabs, and a Heat run shows its grade and the five parts of its score.
• Item cards show recessed rune sockets and a runeword block, and the Smithy's Runes tab has a rune icon.

Still cooking

• A dash of its own for every class, with its own tuning against the big blows.
• More tuning of the two verbs.
• Dungeon entrances as landmarks you can see from a distance.
• The town's north gate leading out to the Bramblewold.
• Town portals.
• The Act I story along the road.

See also

• Fights: locks, verbs and rounds
• Ember runes
• The open world
• Pyre Tiers and Heat