Even More Episode 1 Reveals – New Hero, New Map, New Enemy

Chromatic Games May 6th, 2021

DEFENDERS,

During our dev stream last Friday, we mentioned this week would bring the biggest news yet. We weren’t joking! We’ve finally made it to the reveal of the brand new, never-before-seen hero coming to Dungeon Defenders: Awakened in Episode One. A couple of weeks ago, we revealed the Warden, who happens to be the spiritual successor of the Dryad. Who will be joining her in Etheria? The second hero goes by… The Rogue!

Now that you have a name (which some of you correctly guessed on our Twitter and Instagram posts), guess we need to tell you more about this new hero. Have we built up the excitement enough? We sure hope so. Let’s get to the learnin’!

New Hero: The Rogue

Lycan enemy explodes in the background as The Rogue appears in GIF.

As some of you super sleuths guessed (was it the ears??), the Rogue is a highly trained elven soldier. The catch—he’s the last remaining elite warrior 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 defensive towers does not mean the Rogue is without protection. Going Stealth activates invisibility and his arsenal of devices combine to disable, enfeeble, and slow your enemies’ advances. Let’s dive into the details of these attacks, abilities, and devices.

Attacks and Primary Abilities

Developer Note: All of these things are subject to change in regards to balance, functionality, and visuals.

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 Stealth: Hero throws a single deadly knife at an enemy, dealing massive single-target damage.

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 Stealth: Daggers deal more damage and pin enemies to the ground, immobilizing them for a short period.

Devices and Utility Abilities

The Rogue has been specially trained for direct combat—a “fighter” some may say—and brings a preference for battling enemies with some very powerful tools. With this battle style, the Rogue does not build defenses, but instead this lone warrior comes equipped with devices that act as mobile traps that deal elemental damage and apply debilitating status effects to all Marked enemies during combat, regardless of the distance between defender and enemy. The Rogue’s Stealth also comes in handy for those moments when defenders want to surprise their foes, escape danger, or mark enemies from afar.

Developer Note: We wanted the Rogue to play like no other pure damage characters that we’ve made in other Dungeon Defenders games. We wanted him to feel like there was strategy in his abilities, similar to placing towers. He’s designed to fill the role of a special enemy killer, focusing down the strongest foes with both consistent and burst damage when you focus a specific enemy (with nearby enemies taking some hits being an added bonus). For our first non-building hero, he’ll have a lot of big moments and strategies similar to when a tower is beating down enemies, except you’ll BE that tower!

Passive – Rogue’s Mark: Marks are applied to a maximum of 8 enemies while using Swift Assault, Disengage, or attacks from stealth. 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, while causing attacks against them to deal additional 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 from The Rogue 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 – Stealth: The Rogue becomes invisible for a short duration. While invisible, the agile hero can Mark enemies with primary attacks, secondary attacks, and empower non-Device abilities. He cannot be targeted by enemies, but he can still take damage from their attacks if he gets within damaging range.

Riposte Buff: Using a non-Device ability breaks invisibility and applies a buff to the Rogue. This buff reduces incoming damage from all sources and deals his melee weapon damage back to attacking enemies for a short period.

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 Stealth: AoE damage radius is increased and it breaks invisibility.

New Map: The Keep

Throughout the month of April, we’ve revealed one new map each week that’s being added to DDA in Episode 1 on our Friday Funday dev streams on Twitch. You’re definitely missing out on some of the best beans if you haven’t made it to a stream yet, but we can’t keep all the secrets to ourselves. So, LOOK AT THIS BRAND NEW MAP. It’s called The Keep and it’s as spooky in game as the picture suggests.

With the other three maps we’ve revealed as remakes of fan-favorites from other Dungeon Defenders games—The Mill, The Outpost, and Foundries and Forges—we wanted to save the best for last. These cursed grounds form a gigantic map. We mean that. It is HUGE. Don’t believe us? Watch the live playthrough from last Friday.

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.

New Enemy: Lycan

Another big bean we revealed last week is the new enemy, the Lycan. As you can see from the picture, they’re certainly looking to bring more destruction to Etheria. Using the werewolf’s signature ability, “Howl,” the Lycan empowers himself and nearby enemies, while reducing the effects of incoming attacks.

Lycan enemies show up on each of the new maps, but they show up in earlier waves as you progress through Act 4. Are you up for the challenge? We sure hope so because Etheria needs you!

What’s Next?

We still have lots of exciting changes and updates coming to DDA that we’ll share with you all during our Friday Funday dev streams, including showing off the Rogue this week! We’ll post a reminder on social media, but make sure to head over to Chromatic Games’ official Twitch page this Friday at 3PM EST to hear all the juicy B E A N S we can’t wait to spill.