Stoneshard Update #56 - Weapon Skills
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Category: News ArchiveHits: 988
Ink Stains Games, the team behind the upcoming roguelike RPG Stoneshard, has been running a closed beta for their game for a few weeks now, and so their latest Kickstarter update shares their current plans for said beta. And on top of that, it goes over Stoneshard's varied weapon skills and shows off some sample animations. Here are the text parts:
Greetings everyone!
Over the last month we’ve got lots of news to share. Since September 20th we’ve been conducting a Closed Beta Test. Thanks to our testers, we’ve collected a lot of feedback and fixed many bugs. Therefore, this devlog is split in two parts: we’ll present weapons and weapon abilities for those, who haven’t seen beta version gameplay, and then we’ll get to our future plans for the game.
Overall there are 13 types of weaponry planned for the game: swords, axes, maces, daggers, greatswords, greataxes, greatmauls, spears, bows, crossbows, staffs and shields. In turn-based games the majority of weapons functions in a similar manner, so we tried our best to bring as much variety to stats, crit effects and abilities as possible.[...]
At the moment we’ve implemented 8 skill trees out of planned 12. Skill trees more or less share the same structure: one-handed weapons have 8 abilities – 4 actives and 4 passives. Two handed weapons have slightly more abilities, 10 of them overall. It’s been designed this way to compensate for more narrow build paths. While a player with an one-handed sword can also learn shields (or dual-wield with any other one-handed weapon), two-hander warrior has fewer options.
The same principle applies to daggers – they are more effective when dual wielded, so their skill tree also has 2 extra abilities. Other than that, we’ve combined bow and crossbow abilities into a single large skill tree. This will provide archers with an extensive and engaging leveling path and will allow them to use two weapon types.
Now let’s have a closer look at the abilities in question. We are striving for a reasonably realistic setting, so weapon skill trees are mechanically and conceptually more limited than magic. Though each skill tree is built around distinct mechanics and implies special skill rotations which you discover as you invest your skill points. Unfortunately, abilities are quite numerous and we wouldn’t want to stretch out this devlog, so we’ll skip passives and have a quick look at active abilities, supplementing it all with gifs, showing complete skill rotations for each skill tree. Please keep in mind that on most of these gifs characters are overpowered to make GIFs shorter and more entertaining to watch.
Swords
Swords are distinguished by their versatility and mobility.
Onrush – a swift dash towards the enemy.
Keeping Distance – a defensive maneuver with an attack on retreat.
Cleaving Strike – a mighty AoE attack, which increases you Counter Chance.
Fencer’s Stance – a powerful buff to Block and Counter chances, which stacks on successful attacks.
Axes
Axes are focused around crippling enemies with injuries.
Mutilating Lunge lets you open a fight with an injury.
Cut Through does bonus damage to armored and wounded enemies.
Massacre increases Bleed Chance and Bodypart Damage with each strike.
Execution deals tremendous damage to injured foes.
Maces
Maces are the best crowd weapon as most of their abilities are focused around Dazing and Stunning your opponents.
Onslaught allows you to burn enemy’s Energy, Knock them back, move one tile forward and then apply Daze.
Armor Break does significant damage to Armor, especially if the target is Stunned or Dazed and also increases further damage taken by the enemy.
Finish Off does bonus damage for each remaining turn of Stun or Daze affecting the enemy and also puts their abilities on cooldown.
Hammer and Anvil does bonus Armor Damage with a chance to Daze – as with the rest of the weapon buffs, it’s stacked by delivering attacks.
Clarification: Stun forces enemies to skip their turn. Daze is comparable to “silence” effect, preventing enemies from using abilities.
Daggers
Dagger abilities were designed to rely on skillful execution to compensate for their low damage.
Double Lunge allows to deliver two strikes with high Bleed Chance.
Deadly Trick switches places with an enemy, burns their Energy and grants you 100% Dodge Chance for the next turn.
Gaping Wound applies an effect, which makes enemies bleed when they use their abilities.
Coup De Grace deals bonus damage to wounded and bleeding enemies.
And finally, Painful Stabs is a stacking buff to Bleed and Crit chances.
Greatswords
Greatsword is a powerful and self-reliant weapon. Inability to wield it with a secondary weapon or a shield is compensated by high damage output and a wide variety of abilities.
Feint Swing lets you trick an enemy with high Block or Dodge, delivering a guaranteed strike with slightly lower damage.
Heroic Charge allows you to instantly close the distance to an enemy, dealing bonus damage for each tile traveled.
Feast of Steel lowers you damage but increases your Crit Chance to 100%, granting AoE cleave for your attacks.
Parry increases Block Chance and Block Power with each blocked attack. It also allows you to perform a guaranteed Counter on block.
And finally, Arc Cleave strikes up to five adjacent enemies with high Bleed Chance – an indispensable skill for when you find yourself surrounded.
Staffs
Staffs mostly serve as a support weapon. This idea is reflected in their skill tree, mostly built around mobility and crowd control.
Hail of Blows delivers three blows with special properties: Energy Drain, Daze Chance and Knockback Chance.
Step Aside! charges towards a target with a chance to Knock all adjacent enemies back on arrival.
Unwavering Stance decrease Damage Taken and increases Fortitude and Block Chance.
And Peacemaker Dazes all adjacent enemies and lets you retreat a tile back without triggering Attacks of Opportunity.
Ranged Weapons
A fairly extensive skill tree which consists of 14 abilities – just like skill trees for magic.
First ability, Taking Aim, increases damage and Accuracy, compensating for the inherently low Accuracy of ranged weapons.
Distracting Shot is essential for archer’s survival, allowing you to retreat two tiles while shooting a parting arrow at an enemy with lower damage and Accuracy.
Long-Range Shot increases firing distance and grants bonus damage for each tile between you and your target.
Piercing Shot deals damage to all targets standing in the way of an arrow and causes Bleeding. Headshot always targets the head (unexpected, isn’t it?) and has bonus Bodypart Damage.
Suppression is a stacking buff which adds Knockback Chance to your arrows.
Hunter’s Mark is well suited for lonely, resilient targets as it increases damage to them with every subsequent shot.
Shields
Not a weapon per se, but they sure deserve a mention.
Raise Shield provides high Block Chance against incoming blows and arrows for a few turns.
Shield Bash deals small damage with a chance to Daze.
Breakthrough strikes three adjacent enemies with a shield, dealing damage and Knocking them back.
And finally, Defensive Stance will decrease Damage Taken and raise Counter Chance when your character is hit.
CURRENT PLANS
At the moment we are preparing the final (or semifinal) patch for the Closed Beta. After that we will start on giving the Prologue a makeover. Don’t expect radical changes, but some things will actually be very different – and we are not talking about all these new mechanics which appeared in the game over the last year and a half.
We plan to complete it in a few weeks. At the same time, we also plan to update some of the existing mechanics... But it’s a story for another time.
