The Lycan’s Keep Update is Live for Dungeon Defenders: Awakened

Chromatic Games  August 4th, 2021

DEFENDERS, It’s finally here! The Lycan’s Keep Update is live on PC/Steam and Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One, and coming soon to Nintendo Switch. We’ve been testing, revising, retesting, and re-revising this update for a couple of months. Now, we can’t wait for all Defenders to experience the big (and small) changes to Etheria.

We don’t want to keep you in the intro too long, so get scrolling! Read about all the goodies (and new baddies) included in The Lycan’s Keep Update.

TWO-WEEK EPISODE 1 LOGIN REWARD!

First thing’s first, to celebrate the launch of The Lycan’s Keep Update and DDA on Nintendo Switch on the same day, Defenders who log in to the game will be rewarded with this fancy Royal Shroomy Hat. This login event will only last for two weeks, so go go go!

Since this is a login reward for the new update, Nintendo Switch Defenders will have two weeks from the release of the update on that console to earn that reward. Don’t worry; we wouldn’t let anyone miss out on the Shroomy hat fun.

New DLC – Supporter Packs

You asked, and we’re delivering, introducing our purchasable Supporter Packs! Have you always wished to look like a Gator while defending the Crystal? Well, us either, but now we can’t think of a better way to scare the baddies. You can grab the full Gator Gear Weapons and Accessories set for $9.99 USD. You’ll also find the Chromatic Costume set and DD1 Original Hero Paper Masks set for $4.99 USD. We can’t wait to see you all in your new gear!

Gator Gear Weapons and Accessories

Chromatic Costumes

Original Hero Paper Masks

New Heroes

This update introduces two new defendin’ heroes to Etheria – The Warden and The Rogue! On top of the new heroes, we made some changes to the Hero Deck, including expanding it and making the active hero incentives stronger.

The Warden

A guardian of the forest that was banished to the realm our heroes find themselves in, The Warden joins our roster to help push back the evils that stand in your way with plant-like defenses and a Wrath Mode to scare even the toughest enemies. In our prior surveys and roadmap voting, the Dryad from Dungeon Defenders II was one of the most requested heroes. The Warden is her spiritual successor, using the power of the forest to take down any foe that approaches.

Attacks and Abilities

Primary Attack: The Warden swings her mighty polearm like a scythe clearing a field, destroying foes that stand before you in melee range.

Secondary Attack – Sprout: The Warden calls forth a sprout that erupts from the ground, dealing low AoE damage to nearby enemies, shooting a seed a short distance away.

• Normal Form: Picking up the seed instantly regenerates 15% of the Warden’s mana.
• Wrath Form: The seed grants increased damage and movement speed for 5 seconds.

Ability 1 – Mushroom Circle: Beckons forth a burst of mushrooms from the desired location.

• Normal Form: Mushrooms heal allies within the circle, while slowing enemy movement speed and reducing attack rate.
• Wrath Form: Enemies take damage while within the circle. After 10 seconds, the mushroom circle erupts, dealing damage and stunning all enemies within the circle.

Ability 2 – Wrath Form: Calls upon the power of the forest causing the Warden to surge with energy. Wrath Form increases the strength of all her abilities and defenses while active, regardless of range.

Defenses

Defense 1 – Roots of Purity: Summons a blockade that can take a beating from enemies. Blesses the ground with the Zone of Purity around the roots that allows the Warden’s other defenses to be constructed. The Zone of Purity restores 1% HP per second to any hero within its coverage.

• Mana Cost: 20 Build Mana
• Defense Units: 1 DU
• Wrath Form: The Zone of Purity becomes the Zone of Wrath, dealing damage over time to enemies within its boundaries, while also slightly reducing enemy damage.

Defense 2 – Wisp Den: Opens a portal, pulling through three wisps that focus down enemies within its range, always prioritizing high-threat targets.

• Mana Cost: 50 Build Mana
• Defense Units: 4 DU
• Wrath Form: Wisps become enraged, attacking enemies for more damage.

Defense 3 – Beaming Blossom: Grows a flower that collects solar energy that then goes crazy towards enemies within its range, shooting a pure continuous beam of solar energy that deals high damage.

• Mana Cost: 70 Build Mana
• Defense Units: 5 DU
• Wrath Form: The beam becomes magically empowered, piercing through enemies.

Defense 4 – Shroomy Pit: A pit appears that spawns a Shroomy, a brave mushroom warrior of the forest. Shroomies don’t have a lot going on in their heads, and as a result they do two things. Idly stand still, and as they spot an enemy, charge legs first (they’re a bit off-balance) and explode into enemies, dealing damage in a large area.

• Mana Cost: 40 Build Mana
• Defense Units: 5 DU
• Wrath Form: Shroomies enter their own Wrath Form, applying a damage over time effect to enemies hit by their explosion.

Defense 5 – Sludge Launcher: Vines and logs are infused together, pulling in toxins from the ground, shooting out giant globs that explode on contact, dealing a large amount of damage to the first enemy hit and heavily coat them in sludge, lightly covering nearby enemies in sludge, slightly slowing them.

• Mana Cost: 80 Build Mana
• Defense Units: 7 DU
• Wrath Form: If the Warden attacks heavily sludge covered enemies, they can be stunned for 1.5 seconds.

The Rogue

This highly-trained elven warrior is the last remaining elite soldier from an ancient elven army, meaning he comes ready to battle enemies head on as a melee and ranged dual-wielding hero. As a combat-only defender, the Rogue is agile, dashing in and leaping out of battle as he sees fit.

A lack of defense towers does not mean the Rogue is without protection. Activating Umbral Form makes him invisible and his arsenal of devices combine to disable, enfeeble, and slow your enemies’ advances.

Attack and Primary Abilities

Weapons of Choice: Dual-wielding: Melee (Right hand) and Crossbow (Left hand)

Primary Attack – Melee Attack: The Rogue swings his equipped sword, dealing damage based on the weapon’s stats.

Secondary Attack – Ranged Attack: The Rogue fires his equipped crossbow, dealing damage based on the weapon’s stats.

Primary Ability 1 – Swift Assault: Dashes forward and deals AoE damage once reaching his destination.

• From Umbral Form: The Rogue throws a single piercing deadly knife at an enemy, dealing massive damage to up to 3 targets.

Primary Ability 2 – Disengage: Throws a spread of daggers forward dealing AoE damage and applying Rogue’s Mark to all enemies hit during attack. The Rogue leaps backwards out of the danger, providing a gap between him and his foes.

• From Umbral Form: Daggers deal more damage and pin enemies to the ground, immobilizing them for a short period.

Devices and Utility Abilities

Passive – Rogue’s Mark: Marks are applied to a maximum of 8 enemies while using Swift Assault, Disengage, or Primary and Secondary attacks. The Rogue can then activate debilitating Devices on Marked enemies.

Device 1 – Arcing: Snares Marked enemies with nets of lightning, disabling their attacks and abilities, as well as dealing a large amount of lightning damage.

Device 2 – Napalm: Incinerates Marked enemies, dealing a large amount of fire damage over a short time. Enemies also take increased damage from other attacks and abilities while Napalm is active.

Device 3 – Noxious: Injects Marked enemies with a highly potent toxin that slows movement and deals poison damage while Noxious is active.

Utility Ability 1 – Umbral Form: The Rogue becomes invisible for a short duration. While invisible, the agile hero has increased movement speed, damage, and empowered non-Device abilities. He cannot be targeted by enemies, but he can still take damage from their attacks if he gets within damaging range.

• Damage: Increased by 10-50%
• Movement Speed: Increased by 25-100%
• Healing: up to 5% HP every 0.5 seconds
• Duration: 5-10 seconds
• Cooldown: 20-12 seconds

Utility Ability 2 – Carnage: The Rogue throws a flurry of deadly piercing daggers, dealing AoE damage every half a second throughout its duration. Defenders can move while this ability is activated and it can be channeled until you’re completely out of mana.

• From Umbral Form: AoE damage radius is increased.

Hero Deck and Hero Level Changes

Hero Deck Changes

Now having four heroes is great and all, but based on prior survey results, we knew our Defenders wanted to build bigger hero decks. With the addition of the Warden and the Rogue, we knew this need would be even greater. Instead of 4 heroes in your deck, you’ll now have 6 HERO DECK SLOTS!

A larger hero deck called for some changes to the Hero Deck Bonuses too. Defenders wanted more incentives for keeping heroes in their hero deck, so we did just that by revamping the bonuses. Check out those changes below:

New Deck Bonuses

• XP is equally earned across all active heroes in Hero Deck.
• Set Bonuses and Item Effects are only active in the Hero Deck.
• Tower Damage for all heroes in the Hero Deck is increased by 20%.

Hero Level Changes

We have one more hero-related change for our Defenders. For all of you who feel reaching Level 100 wasn’t difficult enough, we’re increasing the level cap for all heroes to 105. The best items in The Lycan’s Keep update require Level 105 to equip, meaning you’ll need to conquer many foes on your journey to utilize the strongest gear available.

Pets

New Pet – Happy Hera

• Shoots exploding projectiles that deal damage to nearby enemies.
• Restores HP for each enemy hit while attacking.

New Pet – Raging Zeus

• Shoots exploding projectiles that deal damage to nearby enemies.
• Chance to stun while attacking.

New Pet – Lycan Prince

• Provides bonus armor to nearby heroes.

New Pet – Demon Duke

• Attacks enemies both with melee and ranged attacks.

Airship

• Increased chance to spawn with max projectiles (3).
• Now shoots its projectiles at different targets if more than 1 target exists.
  • For example, with up to 3 projectiles, the targeting changes depending on the number of enemies:
    • 1 Target – 3 projectiles on the one enemy
    • 2 Targets – 2 projectiles on the first enemy, and 1 on the second
    • 3 Targets – 1 projectile on each enemy

Dragon

• Increased chance to spawn with max projectiles (3).
• Increased attack damage by 20%.
• Now always rolls with Fire damage.
• Updated projectile appearance.

Etherian

• Increased base damage by 500%.
• Increased melee extent by 185%.

Giraffe

• NEW: While the hero with this pet equipped is ACTIVE in play the Hero Deck Builder bonus is increased by 5%.
• Reduced Hero Stat scaling by 10%.

Griffin

• Increased chance to spawn with max projectiles (3).
• Increased attack damage by 20%.
• Now always rolls with Lightning damage.
• Updated projectile appearance.

Little Wizard

• Now has 1 projectile.
• Increased attack damage.
• Rolls for any elemental damage, except Fusion.
• Projectile travels through all map elements for a set duration, dealing damage to all enemies hit on path.

Mega Chicken

• Increased projectile AoE by 15%.
• Increased melee extent by about 43% Increased attack damage.
• Increased scaling for hero stats.
• Added VFX for projectile and melee attacks.

Mista Mine

• NEW: While the hero with this pet equipped is ACTIVE in play the Hero Deck Builder bonus is increased by 10%.
• Reduced Hero Stat scaling by 10%.

Monkey King

• Decreased damage buff to 10% from 15%, while increasing the number of times it can stack to 10 from 5.
• Increased base damage by about 1000%.
  • When fully buffed, he will now have about 260% more damage.

Paddleball

• Increased base damage by about 2800%.

Ramster

• Increased base damage by about 500%.
• Increased melee extent by 185%.

Steam Robot

• Increased base damage by about 400%.
• Increased melee extent by 330%.

Fusion Pets

• Fusion pets will now drop on Encore maps in Rifted Campaign victory chests, Survival Wave 14 victory chests, Survival Wave 25 victory chests, and Bonus Wave victory chests.
  • Magus Quarters: Paddleball
  • Endless Spires: Monkey King
  • Glitterhelm: Mega Chicken
  • Foundries and Forges: Demon Duke

All Melee Pets

• Increased chance to drop with a max attack rate of 0.33 seconds.
• Increased target range.
• Increased stat scaling on Vitality by 8%.
• Removed Knockback from all attacks.

All Ranged Pets

• Increased chance of spawning with a max attack rate of 0.63 seconds.
• Increased target range by 50%.
• Increased all projectile speeds by 300%.
  • No longer target Siren. NEW Target Priority: Djinn > Copter > Ogre/Sharken/Lycan/CopterOgre > Spider > Warrior > Bosses > Everything else

Act IV Maps

We added in another round of maps for our Defenders to test their combat and tower-building skills, that also include NEW ENEMIES and a NEW BOSS. Keep scrolling for all the details on this juicy, new content. (Maps are listed in order.)

The Mill

The Mill is the first stop the heroes make upon leaving the castle to continue their journey. They enter a bright and vibrant forest that used to be used to provide lumber and materials for building the castle and nearby towns. Though it seems calm and peaceful, an army of enemies awaits to prevent our heroes from pushing onward with their journey.

If you squint REALLY hard you’ll notice that this map is a remake of a fan favorite, and highly requested map, Mistymire. We made a couple of changes to make building defenses feel better, as well as modified some lanes to make things play out more smoothly.

• # of Cores: 3
• DU: 140

The Outpost

The Outpost is a remake of the Drakenfrost Resort map from Dungeon Defenders II, a map that not many people have had the opportunity to explore and defend. It hangs on a cliff, overlooking where you’ve previously come from, and acted as a barracks of sorts to keep soldiers of Etheria stationed outside of town, with a giant belltower to warn of incoming threats.

• # of Cores: 2
• DU: 140

The Keep

The Keep’s sheer size is a challenge in itself. Do you focus on pushing enemies into tight lanes to maximize AoE damage? Do you find the perfect hiding spot for your DSTs? Guess we’ll have to wait and see what The Keep has in store for defenders.

• # of Cores: 3
• DU: 145

Bonus Map: Foundries and Forges

This bonus map probably looks like another familiar remake of one of DD1 Defenders’ favorites. The gorgeous (and deadly) lava that turn up the heat within the Foundries and Forges aims to give Defenders a bit of nostalgia with renewed fun.

• # of Cores: 1
• DU: 80

Enemies

Any good update also brings in some new baddies to liven up combat. Act IV introduces the baddest of them all – werewolves! Try not to get too scared while learning more about them.

Lycan

Using this feral foe’s signature ability, “Howl,” the Lycan empowers himself and nearby enemies, reducing the damage of incoming attacks, and increasing their health and damage each time they’re attacked while howling. Lycan enemies show up on each of the new maps, but they show up in earlier waves as you progress through Act IV.

Lycan King

Once you maneuver your defenses and combat to get around the Howling Lycan, you have one more challenge to save Etheria – the Lycan King! You’ll run into the King after defeating the final wave on The Keep. We won’t spoil this for you, you’ll have to experience it yourself!

Gear Changes

Gear has gotten a major facelift in this update, and for a lot of reasons. We took a heavy look at what Defenders are doing with gear, how well they understand it, and what that means for metas. The prior meta was boost-only to succeed. Boost builds are fun, but they shouldn’t be the only way to experience the game. We’re keeping boosting viable, but we’ve also added options to help give our ever-expanding roster of heroes and content more ways to be enjoyed.

Stat Changes

There’s a lot to unpack here, so let’s focus on the specific changes to each hero and tower stat.

• Ammo and Reload Speed Removed
  • Crossbow alternate fires have been updated!
  • NEW – Grenade Shot: The Huntress gains the ability to shoot an arcing explosive that deals damage to enemies hit. If the Huntress is in the explosion radius, she gets launched based on her orientation to the explosion.
• Agility
  • Cannot be upgraded, but instead scales from levels 1 – 50.
  • At Level 50, the movement speed increase is equivalent to 100 agility stat points from before Episode 1.
• Block
  • Scales based on the source of the attack, with smaller enemies taking less block resources and stronger enemies taking more.
• Casting
  • Scales based on your hero level up to a cap. The higher your level, the faster you build, repair, and upgrade defenses.
• Charge Rate
  • Baked into abilities that charge (e.g. Apprentice Secondary Attack)
• Knockback
  • Scales off specific weapons innately.
• Melee Attack, Ranged Attack, and Elemental Attack
  • Merged into one “Damage” stat.
  • Damage scaling is the same as before.
• Projectile Count (Polearms)
  • Scales with Monk’s level.
  • Start the game with a single projectile, and this number increases with Monk’s progression, with a max of 7 projectiles.
    • Unique boss weapons still change the shot pattern and scale with level.
• Projectile Speed
  • Scales off specific weapons innately.
• Skill and Boost
  • Merged into one “Ability” stat.
  • Scales all abilities based on this single stat.
• New “Crit” and “Crit Scaling” Stats – Melee Only
  • Added Critical Strike and Critical Scaling stats to melee heroes weapons (Swords and Polearms).
  • Scaling applies to primary attacks only (not abilities or secondary attacks).

Item Stat Changes

Now that we have changes to the stats laid out, the presentation of stats are different now too. In the prior meta, a lot of players felt forced to only play with their defenses. Of course, we love a strategic, effective tower build to take on challenges in DDA, but it shouldn’t be the only way to take down the toughest baddies. Instead of forcing Defenders to choose between a defense-focused hero only and a damage-focused hero only, you now have the option for both.

Where stats show up changes within this update and we wanted to provide a breakdown of their new homes:

Hero Stats

• Damage: Weapons, Pets
• Attack: Weapons, Pets, and Offhands
• Ability: Weapons, Pets, and Offhands
• Vitality: Weapons, Pets, and Offhands
• Armor: Helmets, Gloves, Chest, and Boots
• Firing Solution: Crossbows, Staves, and Pets
• Projectile Count: Crossbows and Staves
• Critical Chance: Polearms and Swords
• Critical Severity: Polearms and Swords

Tower Stats

• Fortitude: Helmet, Gloves, Chest, Boots, Masks, Bracers, and Brooches
• Power: Helmet, Gloves, Chest, Boots, Masks, Bracers, and Brooches
• Def. Rate: Helmet, Gloves, Chest, Boots, Masks, Bracers, and Brooches
• Range: Helmet, Gloves, Chest, Boots, Masks, Bracers, and Brooches

Offhands

All heroes that do not dual wield weapons have an Offhand slot. These are as follows:

• Ammo Pouch: Crossbow heroes
• Shield: Sword heroes
• Tome: Staff heroes
• Whetstone: Polearm heroes

Item Effects

This is a new system for all gear in DDA. Item effects are unupgradable additional stats and effects that are applied on all your gear. For Episode 1, our goal has been to lay it out as a foundational system that we are going to continue to build upon.

They’re additional effects that roll on your gear. There are a ton of these (with more added each episode) that should help boost your strength. Some only roll on specific item types. Here’s the list of the new item effects:

Stat Types

• These roll additional stats on pieces of gear that those stats could appear on.
  • Example 1 – “Increases your Power by X” rolls on armor and accessories.
  • Example 2 – “Increases your Attack by X” rolls on weapons and offhands.

Elemental Increases

• These roll additional elemental damage increases.
  • Example 1 – “Increases your hero’s Fire damage by X%” rolls on weapons and offhands.
  • Example 2 – “Increases your defenses’ Fire damage by X%” rolls on armor and accessories.

On Attack

• When using your Primary Attacks, these have a chance to activate.
  • Example 1 – “Your Primary Attacks have X% chance to Enrage enemies for Y seconds”.
  • Example 2 – “Your Primary Attacks have X% chance to explode, damaging all enemies in range. Y seconds cooldown”.

Impact on Current Heroes

With all of these big changes to gear, Defenders should notice a change in your current gear. To make sure everything scales correctly, upgrades have changed since stats are altered. As a result, we’ve removed the upgrades from all of your gear and refunded a plethora of gold based on those upgrades. We know this seems tedious to have to go through this, but this also lets you choose how to upgrade your gear within this new system.

Set Bonuses

Set Bonuses are additional stats and functionality that you get out of wearing pieces of a specific set at the same time. Not much is changing other than there’s more of them! Check out what’s new.

New Bonuses

Thundering Defense

• Increase your defenses’ Lightning damage by 50%.
  • Armor Set, 4 pieces
  • Like Fusion gear, your item stats are still increased, but by a lesser percentage.
  • This increase will make your Lightning Defenses your strongest defenses for this hero.

Plagued Defense

• Increase your defenses’ Poison damage by 50%.
  • Armor Set, 4 pieces
  • Like Fusion gear, your item stats are still increased, but by a lesser percentage.
  • This increase will make your PoisonDefenses your strongest defenses for this hero.

Erupting Defense

• Increase your defenses’ Fire damage by 50%.
  • Armor Set, 4 Pieces
  • Like Fusion gear, your item stats are still increased, but by a lesser percentage.
  • This increase will make your Fire defenses your strongest defenses for this hero.

Deadly Defense

• Increase your defenses’ Physical damage by 30%.
  • Armor Set, 4 Pieces
  • Like Fusion gear, your item stats are still increased, but by a lesser percentage.
  • This increase will make your Physical defenses your strongest defenses for this hero.

Inspired Defense

• Increase your defenses’ damage by 25%.
  • Armor Set, 4 Pieces
  • Like Fusion gear, your item stats are still increased, but by a lesser percentage.
  • This increase will make your defenses your strongest defenses for this hero.

New Weapon Sets

Thundering Assault

• Increases your hero’s Lightning Damage by 50%.
  • Weapons, 2 Pieces (Weapon and Offhand)
  • New to weapons, but plays off Lightning weapons you acquire.

Plagued Assault

• Increases your hero’s Poison Damage by 50%.
  • Weapons, 2 Pieces (Weapon and Offhand)
  • New to weapons, but plays off Poison weapons you acquire.

Erupting Assault

• Increases your hero’s Fire Damage by 50%.
  • Weapons, 2 Pieces (Weapon and Offhand)
  • New to weapons, but plays off Fire weapons you acquire.

Deadly Assault

• Increases your hero’s Physical Damage by 30%.
  • Weapons, 2 Pieces (Weapon and Offhand)
  • New to weapons, but plays off Physical weapons you acquire.

Inspired Assault

• Increases your hero’s damage by 20%.
  • Weapons, 2 Pieces (Weapon and Offhand)

Etherian Champion

• Increase the Damage, Crit Bonus, and Attributes of all equipped Set Pieces by 30%.
  • Weapons, 2 Pieces (MeleeWeapon and Offhand)

Etherian Marksman

• Increase the Damage, Attack Rate, and Attributes of all equipped Set Pieces by 20%.
  • Weapons, 2 Pieces (Ranged Weapons and Offhands)

New Hero Weapon Sets

Apprentice’s Rearmed

• Mana Bomb triggers 1 additional explosion for additional damage.

EV-A’s Protean Cannon MK II

• Protean Surge deals 200% increased damage and ensnares enemies by 20% for 10 seconds.

Huntress’s Flock of Searing Gulls

• Phoenix Shot now fies 2 additional projectiles that deal additional damage.

Monk’s Aura of Pain

• Hero Boost deals additional damage to all enemies within the aura every second.

Rogue’s Marked for Death

• Swift Assault reduces all enemy armor by 25% for 8 seconds.

Squire’s Spinning Steel

• Circular Slice unleashes 4 Piercing Slashes dealing additional damage to all enemies in a line.

Warden’s Enraging Spores

• Mushroom Circle has a 50% chance to enrage enemies. Effect persists for 10 seconds after Mushroom Circle ends.

Woodland Weapons

This new forest-themed set features the following weapons:

• Woodland Sword
• Woodland Polearm
• Woodland Axe 
• Woodland Crossbow
• Woodland Staff

Wolfsbane Weapons

• Drops after defeating Lycan King in Massacre Campaign and Survival.
  • Staff: Max 3 Projectiles with large AOE radius.
  • Bow: Max 1 Projectile with piercing.
  • Polearm: large damage and attack rate boosts.
  • Sword/Mace: increased crit bonus and large damage boosts.

Inventory Layout Update

One of the details we’ve been anxiously waiting to add to the live game is the new Inventory layout and information. Especially with all the changes in this update, we knew we needed to deliver information on items, stats, set bonuses, heroes, etc. better than before. We did this by optimizing the layout with updated organization, better sorting options, and more and more helpful information in the tooltips.

We’ve optimized our layout so that everything is together, making it easier to understand what you’re doing within your inventory.

Bags
You’ll notice at the top there are a plethora of bags. We added additional iconography that allows you to change the visuals for your bags, making it easier to know what each contains based on your personal preferences. That means that you need to have specific filters for specific bags. We’ve got you covered:

Stats
Wow that’s so much for the Inventory! But wait, maybe you’re asking “Weren’t there other tabs?” and you’d be right. The way character stats are displayed and upgraded are all in one convenient location on the Stats Tab:

Spellbook
The Spellbook tab explains what your abilities and towers do for your selected hero. We’ll continue to expand on this feature in the future, but for now it should be made more clear what your heroes can do:

NEW Item Reforging

Reforging allows you to reset an item’s assigned upgrades and re-upgrade that item in a different way. Reforging the item doesn’t take gold but you will have to repurchase any upgrades that you wish to add back on. This is great for if you accidently upgrade the wrong stat or if you want to try something new.

“Tests” Game Mode

We let loose a NEW GAME MODE! This new mode is called “Tests” because it’s one defender being tested against one big baddy. The “big baddy” can be any of DDA’s infamous bosses, and you fight one-on-one to defeat them on their own map. One more small detail – you fight the bosses with zero defenses. Wait! You can’t use your heroes to do this, either. You must choose to fight with one of two predetermined heroes, built by your favorite devs.

Each fight has a 3-minute timer, so you need to be skilled and quick. We’ve spent our PTR phasing honing these different tests so each battle feels fun, tough, and fair. Those of you who were testers during the PTR probably felt those changes throughout testing, and now we’re super excited to show off this new mode with AWESOME NEW REWARDS! Keep reading on to learn all about the new Tests.

Test of the Demon

• Available Heroes:
  • Huntress
  • Series EV-A, with staves
• Demon Lord specials:
  • Demon Lord is immune to damage unless stunned by the Generators
  • When Demon Lord is stunned, goblins and/or orcs rain from the sky
  • Deadly mechanic: Fireball

Test of the Mech

• Available Heroes:
  • Apprentice
  • Series EV-A, with bows
• Goblin Mech specials:
  • Mech has increased movement speed.
  • Mech takes reduced damage from hits that don’t hit the weak point.
  • Dark Elf Warriors periodically spawn.
  • Deadly mechanic: Melee attacks.

Test of the Ancient

• Available Heroes:
  • Monk
  • Squire
• Ancient Dragon specials:
  • When flying around the map, the Dragon can only be damaged by the Ballista.
  • Wyverns spawn after Dragon is shot by the Ballista.
  • Deadly mechanic: Fireballs

The tests all provide a reward for our brand new WINGS transmog slot. Wings are only unlocks through transmog, and do not provide an item that goes in your inventory. It’s a fun cosmetic piece that we’ll continue to incorporate into rewards with future updates.

Changes to Rifted

Rifted Portals

Another fun addition is Rifted Portals. What the heck are portals?!

Rifted Portals are alternate spawn points for enemies that appear at set locations and times on Rifted Act IV maps. Enemies are removed from their original lane and ported to the alternate location. What defenses they miss along the way, nobody knows.

How do you deal with these pesky portals?? Lucky for Defenders, these can be destroyed by your hero. There’s a catch, of course. Portals cannot be destroyed by your hero’s defenses. So, choose your hero wisely!

An added benefit to destroying a portal is the loot that drops once it’s gone. There’s always that incentive to take it down. If you don’t destroy it before the wave is over, it will quietly disappear and a fresh portal will reappear on the next wave, but you won’t receive any loot. Gotta work for the goods.

Rifted Enemies

After Update 1.3 where we reduced the number of enemies across the board to boost game performance, the experiences in Rifted were impacted more than we (and Defenders) wanted. Rifted was designed to challenge the most dedicated Defenders, but as the enemy counts reduced, this mode kind of felt like a punishment rather than an exciting challenge. The long runs that resulted weren’t an intentional design choice and we’ve fixed that to make Rifted all it was meant to be.

To meet this goal, Rifted no longer spawns normal enemies. Now, only Rifted enemies show up when you choose this mode. The enemy counts, attack damage, and HP stay exactly the same. You just won’t need to bat off the normies anymore.

Bonus Waves

These are one of those spicy additions we’ve added for late-game defenders who are itching for that extra challenge. With an extra challenge comes extra rewards in the form of a chance to get max quality gear from EVERY MAP. What’s the point of a Bonus Wave? To earn extra awesome gear, of course! And you should believe us when we say these rewards are extra awesome.

Unlocking Bonus Waves

Defenders can only unlock Bonus Waves in each Act after completing Survival Wave 25 on the Boss maps on Nightmare and Massacre difficulties. We want to make sure Defenders are rewarded for attempting (and completing) more difficult maps, too. So, once you complete a Boss map, that boss’ named Bonus Wave is unlocked for all prior maps. For example, defeating the Goblin Mech at the end of Act 2 will unlock the Goblin Mech Bonus Wave for all Act 1 and Act 2 maps (minus the Throne Room and Endless Spires).

This gives defenders freedom to choose the battle that’s appropriate for your style of play. If you want to skip over the Demon Lord and Goblin Mech maps, heading straight to Ancient Dragon to open the Bonus Waves for all three Acts, you’re able to do that. You may be asking, “Why bother with these extra waves if they’re just tougher challenges?” Well, we left out some important pieces of information…

Loot Drops on Bonus Waves

We hope you’re ready for some AWESOME rewards because that’s what Defenders are getting from these Bonus Waves. As with all other loot drops, the loot quality increases according to the level of the boss associated with the Bonus Wave. Basically, Act 1 Bonus Wave loot drops will increase in quality after you defeat Demon Lord, and Act 1 and 2 Bonus Wave loot drops will increase (again) after you defeat Goblin Mech. Activating Hardcore and/or Rifted further adds to the quality of Bonus Wave loot drops on all maps.

NEW ACHIEVEMENTS!

You asked for it, and we thought it was a great idea. Now there are even more achievements to unlock as you defend your way through Etheria – 18 new achievements for Defenders on both platforms, to be exact. Enjoy!

Hero Balance

Apprentice

Defenses

• Magic Missile Tower
  • Projectile damage was increased by 60%.
  • Projectile speed was increased by 50%.
• Flameburst Tower
  • Projectile damage was increased by 75%
  • Projectile speed was increased by 50%.
• Lightning Tower
  • Projectile damage was increased by 80%.
  • Bounce range increased and set to 600 units.
    • Previously at base level was 275 units, and fully upgraded to 350 units.

EV

Defenses

• Overlock Beam
  • Decreased minimum DU cost to 3 from 4.
  • Increased width to 25 from 20.

Huntress

Defenses

• All traps
  • Reduced attack rate cap to 0.65 from 2.
• Explosive Trap
  • Increased damage by 10%.
• Inferno Trap
  • Increased damage by 100%.
• Thunder Spike Trap
  • Increased damage by 50%.
  • Decreased reset time by about 40%.

Monk

Secondary Attack

• Now scales from Primary Attack Damage.
• Increased max projectile to 8 from 6.
  • Projectiles now scale with hero level.
• Updated attack to hit for 50% of melee damage per projectile.
• Decreased attack rate scaling.

Squire

Defenses

• Harpoon Turret
  • Projectile damage was increased by 33%.
  • Projectile speed increased by 50%.
• Bowling Bowl Turret
  • Projectile damage increased by 45%.

General

Melee Attacks

• Melee attacks no longer deal damage based on the enemy getting hit by the weapon’s model. Instead there is now a (pretty generous) hitbox that deals damage.
  • Developer’s Note – This was change made because:
    • Melee is already punishing to play. Increasing the range gives a little more safety and a lot more consistency with damage.
    • Various animations would make it so attacks would sometimes not hit. The animations pull from a pool of options, so sometimes RNG animations could punish you if their attack range didn’t extend as far.
    • Transmogging a weapon would change the range at which it hit, and made the transmog system potentially punish players that weren’t using the biggest weapons.
    • It’s just more fun.

Enemy Balance

Multiplayer Enemy HP

• Reduced HP scaling for most enemies when in multiplayer mode
• Add 50% HP to each enemy for each additional player:
  • Ogres
  • Copter Ogres
  • Siren
  • Lycan
• Add 25% HP to each enemy for each additional player:
  • Sharken
  • Djinn

Survival Rifted Boss HP

• Increased HP for all Survival Bosses to be 100% more in Rifted.

Bug Fixes

On top of the new content, we fixed lots of bugs reported by the community for PC and Xbox platforms. Here is the list of those fixes:

General

• Fixed a bug where transmog tooltips weren’t showing.
• Updated buff count to scale properly from rolling.
• Fixed an issue where healing may not have worked properly.
• Fixed a bug that would cause leaving the inventory to crash the game.
• Fixed a crash that would occur when upgrading then swapping heroes in the inventory.
• Fixed an issue where Ability Count effects were not correctly counting shots fired from ranged weapons.
• Fixed a bug where Upgrade / Repair / Sell weren’t canceling each other when activated so you could have multiple activated at once.
• Fixed an issue Repair / Upgrade / Sell abilities were not cancelling after swapping to Build Mode.
• Fixed an issue where Sirens were getting stuck when fleeing to their spawn points.
• Survival: if you beat a certain wave on a harder difficulty, you can now play the same wave on a lower difficulty.
  • Example: if you beat Wave 20 on Massacre you can play up to Wave 20 on all lower difficulties.
• Fixed an issue where repair times were incorrect and taking longer on some defenses.
• Fixed an issue where Hero Stat points were resetting after upgrading an item and then returning to the Hero Stat menu.
• Fixed an issue where Vitality would not show as increasing when adding points.
• Fixed an issue where Crossbow weapons did not continue firing while holding the button to attack after double-clicking.
• Fixed an issue where Clients could see their own HP bar above their head.
• Fixed an issue where the Megachicken was showing incorrect projectile count.
• Fixed an issue where the pointer was missing from the main menu.
• Adjusted various accessory placements on heroes.
• Fixed an LOD issue with the Baby Phoenix Pet’s VFX.
• Fixed an issue where Level, XP, and Unspent Points didn’t update when you swapped heroes while on the stats tab in the inventory.
• Fixed an issue where IE ability passive abilities were not restarting on defender death and respawn.
• Fixed an issue where Map Selection wasn’t selecting your last map’s difficulty.
• Fixed an issue where the “Sell All” function wasn’t working on PC.
• Fixed an issue where the Wave 25 victory chest would not automatically open in bonus wave build phases.
• Fixed an issue where Num5 and Num6 were not default to the binds for Slot 5 and Slot 6 of the hero deck for swapping.
• Fixed an issue where rotating a Defense after selecting placement caused issues with placing towers close together.
• Fixed an issue where no Repair and Upgrade were not ending animations when complete.
• Fixed an issue where regeneration effects were lingering on death.
• Fixed an issue where defenses were not showing any damage dealt in their tooltips.
• Fixed an issue where the compare tooltip showed up for slots that didn’t have anything equipped.
• Fixed an issue where the transmog was displaying item tooltips.
• Fixed an issue where the pause between melee attacks was too long.
• Fixed an issue where some Ranged DPS pets could hit max stat on damage.
• Fixed an issue where Clients would not see the correct value for stats when inspecting built traps.

Enemies

• Decreased delay on the spawn of the last Ogre on Ancient Mines on Massacre Survival.
• Fixed an issue where Ogre Copter’s hat was too large.
• Fixed an issue where Copter Ogres would get stuck after their Copter was shot down.
• Fixed an issue where the Crystals could be attacked on Alchemical Labs while the boss timer was counting down, resulting in an instant stun when the Demon Lord spawned.
• Fixed an issue where Rifted Ogre’s Kobold projectile was exploding too soon.

Heroes

• Squire
  • Fixed an issue where the Squire lost his base mana regen value.

Maps

• Fixed an issue where the Southernmost Tornado Valley billboard was partially stuck in the spawn door.
• Fixed an issue where defenses were unable to be placed on the pipes in Lava Mines.
• Fixed a lighting issue on Deeper Well.
• Fixed an issue where enemies were stuck on Endless Spires near the Northwest spawn point.
• Fixed some issues with collision and lighting on Endless Spires.
• Fixed an issue where Ogres weren’t spawning in Promenade Massacre Survival.
• Fixed an issue where Defenders would instantly die in a specific spot on Ancient Mines after using melee attack.

What Else?

Nintendo Switch

The Nintendo Switch port for Dungeon Defenders: Awakened launches today! Check out the eShop page: Dungeon Defenders: Awakened on Nintendo Switch.

We weren’t able to get this update through Nintendo’s Lot Check before the official launch, but it will be downloadable for Switch Defenders as soon as possible! We’ll update the community once that date is available.

PlayStation Update

For PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 ports, we don’t yet have a release timeline. We previously announced we’re aiming for DDA to be out on all consoles by the end of the year. That will still be our goal, but we need some more time to figure out what tasks we need to complete to get DDA through Sony’s certification.

Social Defenders

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For Etheria!
Chromatic Games