¶ Original Source
These Patchnotes were written by [CG] Andrew and the Original Forumpost can be found here. 2.1.0.27184
A Backup is Available on the Wayback Machine here 2.1.0.27184
This Game Version can be downloaded with a Steam Depot Downloader and the following Information from SteamDB
- App ID: 1101190
- Depot ID: 1101191
- Manifest ID: 6283281534245868954
¶ OCTOBER 27TH EPISODE 1 THE LYCAN'S KEEP PATCH 2.1
Entry posted by [CG] Andrew in News · October 27, 2021
DEFENDERS,
Thanks to everyone who participated in the PTR over the past few weeks. Today we are happy to announce we are bringing those PTR changes live in our Episode 1, The Lycan's Keep Patch 2.1! In addition to the below changes from the PTR, we are also officially starting our Halloween login event. Anyone who logs into DD:A today through November 7th 11:59 PM ET will receive the Hallow's Evil Grin mask for their heroes!
¶ Hallow's Eve Login Event
From now until November 7th at 11:59 PM ET all defenders who login will be able to earn the Hallow's Evil Grin mask, unlocked through the transmog UI. Make sure to hop in to get this ghoulishly gorgeous cosmetic before the time runs out! Nintendo Switch players will receive this reward if they login during this period, and receive the cosmetic in our next Nintendo Switch patch.
¶ General Changes
UI
- Updated tooltips that item effects and set bonuses that affect Primary Attacks also affect Secondary Attacks.
Gear
- Added Raven Lord Wings as a reward for completing the Test of Lycan
- If you participated in the PTR, and filled out the survey, you will receive your Forest Ally Wings shortly. We had an in-game issue, and did not want to delay the patch. Thanks for your patience!
¶ Kickstarter Weapon and Armor Names
If you backed us on Kickstarter for a specific tier, you were able to name some items that will spawn from time to time. We’ve now implemented this functionality and these named items should appear throughout your journeys!
¶ Secondary Abilities
All Hero Secondary Abilities are now able to trigger Item Effects. Just to list them all out:
- Squire’s Shield Throw
- Huntress Grenade Shot
- Apprentice’s Arcane Surge
- Monk’s Ranged Attack
- Series EV-A’s Grenade Shot/Arcane Surge
- Warden’s Sprout
- Rogue’s Ranged Attack
Things might get a bit wild with this change, but it should feel pretty good. 
¶ Mana
Mana in general was adjusted on our end so that it makes more sense and is easier to balance. Many players don’t know this, but the mana bar is 250 Mana Points for every hero. We’re simplifying this so that it’s 100 Mana Points because the cap on this never increases and there’s no reason for it to.
As such here are the major changes that come with that:
- Mana Cap: Reduced to 100 from 250.
- ALL Ability costs have been divided by 2.5
- Mana Regen Item Effects and pets remain the same.
¶ Buff Mana Costs
Alongside this mana change, we’re also making a slight change to how buff abilities work. With the item effects introduced, Defenders got to mana-regen values where you can turn on something like the Squire’s Blood Boil and it never turns off. As such, we’ve introduced a new concept to help prevent them from always being on, but still have gameplay elements that reward players for stacking mana regeneration.
- Buffs start at a 4 Mana Per Second drain, increasing that cost by 1 Mana every 10 seconds.
- Drain cost resets after the ability is turned off either by the player or until it turns itself off after there’s not enough mana.
This means players will not be able to keep it on infinitely, but crafty Defenders with mana regeneration will be able to keep the buffs up longer, while toggling on and off at the right moments to have very very high uptime.
¶ Default Offhands
Any Hero that could have an Offhand item (Squire, Huntress, Apprentice, Monk, and the Warden) now has a default Offhand item that is there should they not have equipped one yet, or unequipped an item and not replaced it.
¶ Projectile Tower Strength
We’ve gone through and increased the strength of the following projectiles in Massacre to be roughly 20% stronger:
- Spiked Blockade
- Bouncer Blockade
- Slice and Dice Tower
- Harpoon Tower
- Bowling Ball Tower
- Magic Missile Tower
- Fireball Tower
- Lightning Tower
- Deadly Striker Tower
- Beaming Blossom
This should bring these towers more in line with newer towers that pack quite a punch.
¶ Tower Targeting Changes
When it comes to what towers focus there has always been some gray area with things changing depending on the tower (and this information not being public facing). With that, we’ve set up two types of towers— Fodder and Special. Here’s what it looks like:
Fodder Enemy-Focused Towers
- Magic Missile Tower
- Fireball Tower
- Lightning Tower
- Bowling Ball Tower
- Shroomy Pit
Fodder Enemy Tower Priority
- Orc
- Archer
- Goblin
- Wyvern
- Spider
- Kobold
- Dark Elf Mage
- Dark Elf Warrior
- Djinn
- Lycan
- Sharken
- Ogre/Copter Ogre
- Bosses
- Goblin Copter
- Skeleton
Special Enemy-Focused Towers
- Deadly Striker Tower
- Wisp Den
- Beaming Blossom
- Sludge Launcher
- Harpoon Tower
Special Enemy Tower Priority
- Djinn
- Lycan
- Sharken
- Spider
- Goblin Copter
- Wyvern
- Ogre
- Dark Elf Mage
- Kobold
- Dark Elf Warrior
- Bosses
- Orc
- Dark Elf Archer
- Goblin
- Skeleton
That’s a long list, and as we continue to develop DDA, we’ll be making this concept a bit easier to understand within the game itself. We wanted to take this as an opportunity to make this information public in some facet.
¶ Heroes
Apprentice
Hero
-
Stats
-
Health scaling from Vitality greatly increased
- Pre-Update at 5000 Vitality
- Normal - Insane: 29,720 HP
- Nightmare/Massacre: 230,481 HP
- Post-Update at 5000 Vitality
- Normal - Insane: 68,469 HP
- Nightmare/Massacre: 530,976 HP
- Pre-Update at 5000 Vitality
-
Abilities
- Overcharge
- Health scaling from Vitality greatly increased
- Now closer in power with Tower Boost.
- Now works with Auras.
- Here’s how it works now:
- Health scaling from Vitality greatly increased
- Overcharge
-
| Rate | 0 | 5 | 10 | 50 | 100 | 500 | 1000 | 2000 | 5000 | 10000 |
| New | 0.38 | 0.54 | 0.61 | 0.84 | 0.97 | 1.38 | 1.61 | 1.89 | 2.33 | 2.74 |
| Old | 0.25 | 0.36 | 0.41 | 0.56 | 0.65 | 0.92 | 1.08 | 1.26 | 1.56 | 1.83 |
-
Mana Bomb
- Cast time decreased to 1 second from 3 seconds.
- Player movement is no longer disabled when finishing the cast.
- Reduced the amount of camera shake.
- Fixed a bug with damage falloff being way too severe.
- Falloff damage is now a minimum of 50% and scales linearly based on enemy distance from the epicenter of the cast.
-
Towers
- Magic Missile
- Now has 360 degree targeting.
- Increased projectile speed to 3000 from 2000 (50% buff)
- Decreased Defense Unit cost to 2 from 3 (33% buff)
- Elemental Blockade
- Increased health by ~100%.
- Deadly Striker Tower (DST)
- Increased damage by 30% in Massacre.
- Magic Missile
-
Huntress
- Hero
- Stats
- Health scaling from Vitality greatly increased
- Pre-Update at 5000 Vitality
- Normal - Insane: 34,293 HP
- Nightmare/Massacre: 265,939 HP
- Post-Update at 5000 Vitality
- Normal - Insane: 45,102 HP
- Nightmare/Massacre: 349,762 HP
- Pre-Update at 5000 Vitality
- Health scaling from Vitality greatly increased
- Stats
- Hero
-
Abilities
- Elvish Agility
- Reduced movement speed and jump height to be easier to control.
- No more slingshotting yourself off edges.
- Reduced movement speed and jump height to be easier to control.
- Elvish Agility
-
Towers
- Proximity Mine Trap
- Increased Base Health to 1.5 from 0.9
- Reduced Base reset time to 10 seconds from 13.875
- Inferno Trap
- Increased Base Damage to 65 from 52.
- Increased Exponent Scalar to 1.15 from 0.95.
- Done to be more inline with the Lightning Aura
- Removed the attack rate multiplier to keep the attack rate scaling the same across all difficulties.
- Thunder Spike Trap
- Increased the Exponent Scalar to 1.3 from 1.15.
- Done to be more inline with the Wisp Den or Deadly Striker Tower.
- Increased the Exponent Scalar to 1.3 from 1.15.
- Proximity Mine Trap
Monk
- Hero
- Stats
- Health scaling from Vitality greatly increased
- Pre-Update at 5000 Vitality
- Normal - Insane: 45,723 HP
- Nightmare/Massacre: 354,586 HP
- Post-Update at 5000 Vitality
- Normal - Insane: 83,380 HP
- Nightmare/Massacre: 646,615 HP
- Health scaling from Vitality greatly increased
- Stats
Abilities
- Hero Boost
- Removed the very minor +5 Healing Per Second it provided.
- Might look into adding this in later in a way that is actually effective.
- Decreased Ground Speed scaling by ~50%.
- Ground Speed will now only apply to the Monk that cast it, and not other players.
- No more slingshotting players off the edge “on accident.”
- Tower Boost
- Removed the very minor armor buff.
- Might look into adding this in later in a way that is actually effective.
- Might look into adding this in later in a way that is actually effective.
- Removed the very minor +5 Healing Per Second it provided.
Towers
- Enrage Aura
- Now more likely to trigger a fight between enemies.
- Ogres will attack enraged enemies.
- Enrage no longer applies to Sharken or Lycan
- Reduced the amount that upgrading scales the duration by ~50%.
- This compensates for the increase to the effect triggering by default.
Series EV-A
-
Hero
- Stats
- Health scaling from Vitality greatly increased
- Pre-Update at 5000 Vitality
- Normal - Insane: 59,875 HP
- Nightmare/Massacre: 464,333 HP
- Post-Update at 5000 Vitality
- Normal - Insane: 72,706 HP
- Nightmare/Massacre: 563,833 HP
- Pre-Update at 5000 Vitality
- Movement
- Increased by roughly 5%.
- Health scaling from Vitality greatly increased
- Stats
-
Abilities
- Decoy
- Damage now uses the element of the equipped/active weapon.
- Increased Damage Radius by 50%.
- Increased Damage by 20%
- Increased Health by 25%.
- Launches player in the air after use, gives air control and reduced gravity.
- Cooldown increased to 5 seconds from 3 seconds.
Towers
- Proton Beam
- Base Damage increased to 20 from 15.
- Diameter increased by 100%.
- Shock Beam
- Decreased reset time to 2 seconds from 3 seconds.
- Decoy
Squire
-
Hero
- Abilities
- Blood Boil
- Slightly reduced the amount of damage gained from the Ability stat.
- Secondary Attack - Block
- Block Removed
- NEW: Secondary Attack - Shield Throw
- Upon activation, the Squire throws his shield where he’s aiming.
- Damage scales from weapon damage, hero damage, and attack power.
- Element is based on the equipped weapon’s element.
- Cooldown starts immediately after casting.
- Bounces: If an enemy is hit, the shield then bounces to the next nearest enemy until there are no more bounces left, up to a maximum of two additional bounces (three instances of damage). If there are no other nearby enemies then the shield returns to the caster.
- The shield will bounce off terrain twice, checking for nearby enemies each time. If an enemy isn’t detected, the shield returns to the player.
- Blood Boil
- Abilities
-
Towers
- Spiked Blockade
- Reduced DU to 1 from 3 (66% Buff)
- Harpoon Tower
- Reduced DU to 5 from 6 (17% Buff)
- Enemy Hitbox size increased to hit additional enemies.
- Environment Hitbox size decreased to cause less unintended hits.
- No longer stays stuck in walls.
- Could not see this happening most of the time, made the game cost more resources to run, removed it to increase performance.
- Bowling Ball Tower
- Bowling Balls now explode on impact with the first enemy they hit dealing damage in an area around it.
- Slice and Dice Tower
- Reduced DU cost to 4 from 6 (33% Buff).
- Range increased for spin up activation and damage dealt.
- Bouncer Blockade
- Reduced DU to 2 from 4 (50% Buff).
- Spiked Blockade
Warden
- Towers
- Shroomy Pit
- Increased Health by 300%
- Increased Range by 30%.
- Shroomy Pit
¶ Bug Fixes
- Fixed an issue where Roots of Purity’s range increase from Overclock Beam was only visual.
- Fixed an issue for clients on gamepad that couldn’t correctly enter build mode after initially joining.
- Fixed an issue where clients see the host’s health as zero or their previous active hero’s health amount.
- Fixed an issue where damage would sometimes show differently between the tooltip versus the upgrade UI.
- Fixed an issue where Sirens would get stuck on geometry while fleeing.
- Fixed an issue where Sirens could get stuck on cores.
- Fixed an issue where Deadly Striker Towers were ignoring Goblin Copter flares.
- Fixed issues with Series EV-A’s stats not properly displaying.
- Fixed an issue where the Rogue’s Carnage ability was not dealing damage to enemies.
- Updated the tooltip to the “Double Edge” item effect.
- Fixed an issue where the Lycan King can get stuck on lures.
- Fixed an issue where Bonus Waves weren’t playing their Build/Combat music properly.
- Fixed an issue where the Lycan King howl was not playing it’s SFX.
- Added close buttons to the Filters and Upgrade UIs.
- Fixed some issues with the crystal generators in Alchemical Labs. Nameplates, hurt flashes, and more have been improved.
- Fixed an issue where the upgrade panel wasn’t showing total attributes.
- Fixed an issue with the Goblin Copter’s rockets impact VFX streaking across the ground.
- Fixed an issue where Pylon sound cues were not properly playing.
¶ Summary
These are a lot of changes coming in to bring some heroes up in strength (some pretty significantly), provide some additional strength through item effects having them trigger off secondary attacks, and even some new content to overcome through the Test of the Lycan!
Make sure to access the survey through the escape menu to provide us feedback with all of the changes and additions made for the PTR round. Properly testing the PTR and filling out the survey will get you PTR-exclusive rewards, so make sure to not skip out!
¶ What’s Next?
We're still continuing our work on Episode2, with some content reveals coming soon. It's still a while from being ready, but we'll be teasing things out a bit earlier compared to episode 1. We're also hard at work on out PlayStation port of DD:A and we'll keep you posted with any significant updates as they appear.
BUT WE’RE NOT DONE YET. We’re also working on some new additions for Dungeon Defenders II that are also coming out THIS WEEK!! Yes, we’re developing both games and handling a PlayStation port all at the same time.
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