THE BURNING AURA IS BACK TO THE DRAWN RING. The flame ring sprite that landed in August was not good enough, so the old drawing is back: the lit circle at the exact radius that burns, with a pulsing edge. The radius is still what hurts, neither growing nor shrinking.
THE CARDS ON THE TABLE LOOK LIKE CARDS NOW. The level-up choice stopped being three dark rectangles. Each card now has an art frame with the illustration FILLING it (twice the old size), a banner carrying the name across the divide, a parchment panel for the text and metal fittings on the corners. Rarity still rules the color. A WEAPON card carries a plate with the crossed swords and how many of your weapon slots are taken, and when the weapon is already yours a medallion in the corner shows its level.
THE ORACLE NOW WEARS LEATHER, AND HAS AN OFF HAND. Leather had no owner: all three heroes wore cloth or mail, and the whole set fell on the ground with nobody able to wear it. Now it is the Oracle's. Along with it, his staff stopped taking both hands, so the off hand that already dropped as loot finally has somewhere to go. The cloth pieces he was wearing went back to your vault, untouched.
THE MAGE'S WHIRLWIND CLEARS THE SHOTS IN THE AIR. It is the "I am surrounded" ability, and what crossed the space it opens were exactly the archers' volleys. Now the wind wipes anything hostile inside the radius. Your own projectiles pass through untouched.
THE COLLECTION AND THE LOGIN SCREEN GOT SOUND. The collection (C key) opens and closes with its own sound, and the entry screen has its own click plus a sound for the moment you enter the realm.
THE ORACLE'S WEAPON BECAME A REAL WEAPON. The Parasite gained a level ladder like the others: it corrodes harder, the circle around it grows, it hops almost instantly from one target to the next, the surrounding corrosion doubles, the corpse bursts when it hops and, at the end, you plant two. The Oracle still starts with it without spending a weapon slot, and the other classes can take it as a card.
PARASITE LEVEL 8: THE HOST. The creature that dies with the parasite attached rises purple and fights for you for 5 seconds. It cannot be harmed in that time, and it works on any creature — including the Skeleton King, who stands at your side while the victory waits. Whoever dies only to the corrosion circle dies for good: what rises is the host.
NEW CARD: COLLAR. A chance for the common creature you slew to rise and fight for you for a few seconds. Common creatures only — elites, bosses and the wall are out — and this is the card that unlocks the Parasite's Host.
WHOEVER IS PICKED UP IS UNTOUCHABLE FOR A SECOND. You come back blinking and nothing hits you in that time, not even the wall — enough to step off the horde that downed you instead of falling again in the same second. Works for a teammate rescue and for the Oracle's Resurgence.
THE GAME HAS ITS OWN CURSOR NOW, AND YOU PICK ITS SIZE. The new crosshair replaces the system arrow, which used to vanish against the pale ground of the city. The size lives in Esc → Options → Video, in steps from half to triple, and it follows your screen resolution on its own.
THE MAGE'S SHOT BECAME A REAL WEAPON. It is now called Fireball and has a level ladder like the others: more fireballs per shot, more damage, more fire rate and better homing. The Mage still starts with it without spending a weapon slot — and the other classes can take it as a card, the same way anyone can take the Baluarte's Aegis. At level 8 it becomes the Comet: it stops chasing and pierces in a straight line, sweeping a whole row.
Balance
THE COMET AND THE MINEFIELD WERE REDONE. Both evolutions took away what the ladder had bought, which is why they felt like a punishment. The Comet no longer stops your fireballs from homing: the four keep going as they were and a fifth one, huge and slow, comes out and pierces the row. And the Minefield stopped chaining the whole field at once — now each mine re-arms itself once after bursting, so the ground sustains itself instead of going empty.
THE BEAM AT LEVEL 7 NOW JUMPS TO A SECOND TARGET. It splashes onto the enemy closest to the one it is locked on, for half the damage and carrying your burns and bleeds along — and you can see the arc leaving the target. The step still grants the 90 range it always did; range alone changed nothing measurable.
THE BEAM HAS TO COOL DOWN BEFORE TAKING ANOTHER TARGET. Whenever it loses the enemy it was locked onto — killed, out of range, behind a rock or gone invulnerable — the beam stays dark for a second before latching onto the next one, and the built-up heat is lost with it. It is still the weapon that hurts most once it is hot; the price now is that letting go costs the whole ramp.
THE WANDERING SKULL IS 20% BIGGER. The skull grew in the drawing and in the area it hits, in the same proportion: it crosses the horde taking up more room, and catching a whole row with it got easier.
TIER 2 GEAR WAS TOO WEAK FOR TIER 2 ITSELF. A white T2 piece was worth less than a green T1, and even a full legendary T2 set gave less headroom against the monsters there than an uncommon set gives in T1. Now each tier adds one stat line and multiplies its value by four: a white set in T2 performs against T2 monsters exactly as a white set performs in T1, and the ladder holds all the way to legendary. The T2 pieces already in your chest were rebuilt under the new rule.
THE ORBIT NOW THROWS THE HORDE BACK. Every blade that connects shoves the creature away from your body, with force of its own — before it used the small nudge every hit gives, shared with your other weapons, and in practice moved nothing. The ring became personal space: whoever comes close goes flying.
EVERY WEAPON GOT STRONGER, EACH IN ITS OWN WAY. The Orbit gained one more blade circling from level one, and a wider blade. The Fan volley gained one more shot and fires a little faster. The Burning aura pulses more often, reaches further and pushes harder. Rune mines are laid faster, arm sooner, burst wider and last longer on the ground. The Boomerang goes out more often, flies faster and further. And the Aegis gained reach, arc and a much longer taunt, with its damage untouched: it is the weapon that pulls the horde, not the one that kills it.
THE PIERCING BEAM WENT THE OTHER WAY: 10% less base damage. The heat ramp was left alone, so what makes the beam the beam is unchanged: it is still the single-target weapon, and bosses and elites are still its home.
Fixes
THE TABLE BUTTONS DID NOT SHOW UP FOR ANYONE BUT THE HOST. New hand, Raise the table, Keep a card and Ban a card were bought in the shop and never appeared inside the run: the screen looked for what you owned in a place that only exists on the server. Now the charges travel with the table, and the button disappears when the use is spent.
THE CREATURES FIGHTING FOR YOU JUST STOOD THERE. The Host and the Collar raised the creature with the horde's pace, which is deliberately slower than yours, and it was still shoved around by its neighbours as if it were one of them. In five seconds it reached nobody. Now it moves twice as fast and the horde no longer pushes it.
THE FIREBALL CAME OUT WITHOUT ITS ARTWORK IN ANOTHER HERO'S HANDS. The sprite was picked by CLASS, not by weapon: anyone who was not the Mage took the card and fired a diamond. The Comet had the same problem.
MINES VANISHED FROM EVERY SCREEN BUT THE HOST'S. Their evolution changed name internally and the scene kept announcing the old one: the mine was born on the server only, invisible to the rest of the table. They also light up at the right time on your screen now — before, the arming clock only ran on the server, and on the other side every mine looked unarmed.
ANYONE WHO IS NOT THE MAGE TOOK THE FIREBALL AND FIRED NOTHING. The card entered the arsenal, took up the space and never shot: its firing lived inside the class path, and nobody from outside ever got there. Same for the Aegis and the Parasite, which are one class's stock weapon and a card for the others.
THE STOCK WEAPON SHOWED UP TWICE IN THE ARSENAL. The Mage and the Oracle saw their class weapon in the base square AND taking one of the six squares, as if it had been a pick of yours. It never really spent your weapon cap; it was the bar lying.
THE XP GEM STUTTERED ON HIGH PING. It came to you at a fixed speed, reached the position the server had sent and STOPPED there waiting for the next packet — the worse the ping, the longer the pause. Now it follows the server by approach: a late packet becomes a faster stretch instead of a jolt.
THE PING WAS PAINTED WRONG. A friend at 64 ms showed up red. The thresholds went into the math inverted, and only below 20 ms came out green. Now it reads as it should: green up to 70, yellow up to 125, red above — and the entry screen uses the same bands as the performance panel.
THE ITEM NAME ON THE GROUND WAS UNREADABLE. The label takes the colour of the rarity, and the bottom two vanished against pale ground and inside the horde. It got a black outline, with the colour kept.
THE COLLECTOR ALREADY GOT FASTER AND THE CARD DID NOT SAY SO. Every level stretches its reach AND its pace, and always did, but the preview only mentioned reach. Now it says both.