Filling in the Duelist | Patreon Weekly #184

Hey Patrons, in this weekly I’m going to share more implementation details on the Duelist base class, we’re getting close to having all the talents and weapon abilities!

But first, here are the results from Patreon Poll #36:
Champion:  64%
Master:        41%
I'm really happy with how this poll went! While the champion is the winner, the relatively strong support for each subclass really shows me that they are both good designs that people are excited for! The Master being a bit weaker here does make sense as well, as her abilities and overall structure are less defined currently, as they don’t piggyback directly on the base class functionality. When I start implementing the subclasses, I will prioritize the Champion first.

More Weapon Abilities

I now have full implantations for all but 3 weapon abilities (or 4 if I end up adding an ability for the ring of force). Here are a few more of the abilities that I’ve implemented:

• Speed weapons get an ability called combo strike, which is guaranteed to hit and is performed instantly if the enemy has already been attacked twice in the last few turns. This lets the Duelist play a little bit like the Gladiator, if she decides to use one of the Gladiator’s favourite weapons.
• The whip gets an ability called lash, which performs a regular attack against all currently reachable targets! The extra weapon range on the whip is usually used against a single enemy, but this ability turns it into an AOE tool as well. Pair with a shocking enchantment for maximum crowd control.
• The flail gets an ability called spin, which lets the Duelist spend up to 3 turns revving the flail up for a massive single hit. At 3 turns of spin the flail deals a massive +60% damage and is guaranteed to hit. Like the flail itself, this ability is unwieldy but hits like a truck. It costs 2 charges to start spinning.

Some Early Talents

I’ve also got implementations or working designs for almost all of the T1 and T2 Duelist talents! Here are a few of those as well:

• Adventurer’s Intuition is a T1 talent that speeds up the identification of weapons and armor, with a focus on weapons. The Warrior is also getting his equivalent T1 talent lightly nerfed to focus a bit more on armor, to better differentiate between the two.
• Aggressive Barrer is a T1 talent that rewards the Duelist with a small amount of barrier when she uses a weapon ability and is on low health. This is meant to match the defensive T1 talents of the other classes, with an emphasis on helping the duelist survive without healing for a little longer.
• Restored Evasion is a T2 talent that triggers on drinking healing potions, giving the Duelist a very brief major evasion boost. This talent operates a little like the Warrior’s Iron Stomach talent but is more focused on helping the Duelist in moments where she really needs to avoid damage and heal.
• Weapon Recharging is a T2 talent that gives the Duelist a little bit of weapon ability charge whenever she is under the effect of the wand or artifact charging buffs. This not only makes the buffs themselves more valuable, but gives the Duelist access to a bit of weapon recharging, which is otherwise quite rare.
• Swift Equip is a T2 talent that lets the Duelist instantly swap her equipped weapon, with a cooldown. This talent enables some strategies focused around using multiple weapon abilities, without the dedication of picking the Champion subclass.

Due to the Holidays, the next two weeklies will probably be a bit sparse. I’ll try to include something though and will also try to get a Shattered Secrets out next week as well.