Hello Rabbits!
I hope your September is going well!
Mine has been pretty busy.
I'm about 60% of the way through with boss fight work. Honestly, it's going a little slower than I envisioned it would.
...Well, I guess the whole DLC has (since I think I said "late summer" at some point) but that's neither here nor there.
I'm trying to have the DLC done mid-November-ish, but we'll see how that goes.
Hopefully other games continue to keep you occupied in the meantime.
Today, another class preview and a boss fight preview!
Thus far I've previewed two ranged classes, so it's high time for a melee class introduction.
For that we now have the Hammermaid Rabbit: a class specializing in weighty hammer strikes.
A rabbit for the slow, heavy, big damage enjoyers!
Last time I introduced Pyromancer Rabbit, who had a somewhat complex rotation with a lot of random procs, contrasted with great freedom of movement.
The Hammermaid Rabbit is basically the opposite: her base rotation is dead simple, but her more powerful attacks slow her down significantly. Playing Hammermaid is about carefully planning your strikes so you aren't stuck in place when something dangerous comes your way.
First, her Primary! She... hits things with her hammer. This slows her down moderately, so use it carefully.
Her Secondary is a step and swing to damage both sides. It's slightly weaker than her Primary, but she gains a significant movement boost before the attack goes off.
For her Special, she hits with her hammer... twice! A slow two-hit that can be spammed over and over.
This move is powerful, but it slows you down a lot, even past the point where the GCD stops running.
It also has no cooldown! Instead, it functions similar to Defender Rabbit's Special. But, unlike Defender Rabbit, Hammermaid gains a use of her Special every time she uses any other ability. So, you can use it quite frequently, if you're able to stand still for a moment.
Hopefully you can kind of see how to play Hammermaid: your Special is very powerful, but slows you down. Your Secondary is weak, but lets you move quickly. And your Primary is kind of an in-between option. You can cancel the later part of Special's slowdown by using a quick Secondary to adjust.
There's one more quirk about her Special: it doesn't have its own damage!
Instead, the Special uses your Primary's damage. As in, whatever your Primary hits for, loot effects and upgrades and all... your Special will do that damage twice. So Hammermaid's ideal loot might be a bit weird compared to some other characters. Definitely don't pick up the Mountain Staff.
Finally, her Defensive gives her invincibility and deals damage 3 times to her left and right. It also locks her in place, so even as a Defensive you might need to be careful where you use it. It's great as an extra offensive tool though.
And, just like the Special, the Defensive also doesn't have its own damage number! Instead, it uses the Secondary's damage. As in, whatever damage your Secondary does, loot effects and all, your Defensive will deal that 3 times.
And that's Hammermaid Rabbit! A simple class on its face with a pretty high skill ceiling.
Deep under the Emerald Lake, water seeps down into an ancient underground pool known as the Subterra Sanctum. This calm place is home to many a creature looking for peace and quiet among the chaos the Spell has wrought.
However, not all is safe within this sanctuary, as on its east side grows a giant, sentient mass of thorny vines and flowers. This dangerous, overgrown plant is known as Eternal Bloom.
What began as a single bud has grown over thousands of years to be completely unkillable. Within her domain, her life-aspected magicks run amok; her thorns, flowers and etherial butterflies all seek to drain whatever life energy it can from any creature that ventures too close.
Unfortunately, our rabbit adventurers have some business over there.
Throughout the fight, Eternal Bloom doesn't attack much herself. Instead, she summons butterfly allies to do much of her mechanics.
Though these butterflies will typically disappear after their attack is done, if your build has a lot of strong AoE, you can destroy these butterflies to make mechanics easier.
In addition to the butterflies, Eternal Bloom will frequently entrap you in large circles of spiraling flowers. So, you'll have to make do within the limited space.
...If any of these attacks look familiar to anyone, that's a coincidence! There's no relation to any other characters that may have shown up in a different game.
After you defeat her, you move into her mass of thorns. What enemy could possibly await you here...?
Some people have asked what kind of animal factions we'll see in the DLC. After all, the base game we had an area with mice, wolves, crows, et cetera.
The DLC's areas aren't quite as clear cut! The Subterra Sanctum isn't just plant girls. We're stepping into a dangerous, magical realm where just about anything could stand in our way. Be prepared for some suprises!
As I said before, I'm about 60% of the way through the bosses after 2 months of working on them. It's been a bit slower than I expected so far, but I'm going to try and lock in and finish them by mid-October. That way, I can have some friends test them and give feedback while I do all of the Story content for the game; as well as get a trailer done.
So if I can accomplish that, the DLC will hopefully be done in November. If I can't, it'll be later than that.
Things are getting closer to completion though!
I don't know if anyone has noticed my absence from various social medias, but I really just have been trying to get this DLC done ASAP. So art streams and other non-R&S things are probably on pause until I do that.
Also, one more thing!
I've previewed 3 new classes so far in these update posts. So you might be wondering how many classes are in the DLC...
Uh, there will be 4 new classes total!
So, there's one more I haven't shown.
And, like last time, I think I'll keep her a secret for you to discover for yourself when the update launches. (She is my personal favorite new class, though!)
There's no particular meaning to the number of new classes. It's just what I could reasonably accomplish without delaying the DLC even longer.
I'm not sure if there will be another long progress-preview dev log quite like this between now and the DLC's release, but I'm sure I'll have some small teasers to post before launch!
With that, I'll see you all next time!