Duelist Armor Ability Updates | Patreon Weekly #190

Hey Patrons, for this weekly I’ve got a status update on the Duelist’s armor abilities!

Also, there’s a new Shattered Secrets this week. I’m sharing some early concepting work I’ve done for the core gameplay of the Cleric!

Also, next week’s weekly will have an audio Q&A segment! Feel free to ask questions either here or on the Patreon discord.

Challenge

Compelled Duel is now Challenge! I’ve had to adjust things a bit from the description I gave in last week’s weekly, but the first Duelist armor ability is now done! Challenge allows the duelist to enter a one on one (plus allies/minions) fight with an enemy and freezes all other enemies while the duel is happening. The duel lasts for up to 10 turns, until the Duelist flees, or until the enemy dies.

While this ability is a bit limited vs. bosses (you can’t freeze their minions), it does work quite well against crowds of enemies, including boss minions themselves! You can’t single out Yog, but you can definitely single out a larva!

During the duel all other enemies are visually darkened and frozen in place. Any debuffs affecting them are paused, and they are immune to damage or new debuffs. I’ve also implemented the talents for this ability:

Elemental Strike

While it’s not in implementation just yet, I have done some concepting work on Elemental Strike. The plan is for this to be a relatively cheap ability that performs a regular melee attack and spreads an effect in a small AOE behind the target based on the enchantment the Duelist’s weapon has. This should be useful even against a single enemy, but it’s really best used against small crowds in close range. Here are my current concept ideas for each of the game’s enchantments, though some of these are likely to change:

• Blazing: Spreads fire in a small cone
• Chilling: Spreads frost in a small cone
• Kinetic: Enemies in a small cone are all hit for either stored damage
• Shocking: Spreads electricity in a small cone
• Blocking: Enemies in a small cone are weakened
• Blooming: Spreads grass and roots in a small cone
• Elastic: Knocks back all enemies in a small circle
• Lucky: Lucky proc chance is boosted for every enemy in a small cone
• Projecting: Enemies in a small cone are all hit as well, at reduced damage
• Unstable: Random enchantment proc on all enemies in a small cone
• Corrupting: Enemies in a small cone have a chance to be corrupted at low HP 
• Grim: chance for a grim proc against all enemies in a small cone
• Vampiric: Vampiric proc chance is boosted for every enemy in a small cone

Parry / Riposte

Following the results from the recent poll, I’m reconsidering Parry and Riposte. I really think a move like this fits the Duelist, but it’s already used by the Gladiator, and clearly interest in it is a bit low. The Monk may also already be getting a similar move that allows for evading enemy attacks. At the moment I haven’t decided, but I’m reconsidering how this ability might work, and whether I want to replace it with something different. Please let me know what you think about that!