Hey everyone,
Emberspark 1.1 is now released!
I've been having a lot of fun working on Emberspark's first major update. For 1.1, I wanted to give your party more ways to work together, make enemy encounters more memorable, and make attacks feel better to watch.
I especially want those runs where a few lucky relics and the right abilities come together into something powerful. This update gives you more combinations to discover, along with enemies that might make you rethink your next move.
Here's what's new.
Party Limits
Your party can now unleash a coordinated attack shaped by its class composition.
- Unlock Party Limits for 1,000 permanent points under Permanent Unlocks > Run Mastery.
- Damaging actions build a shared gauge that carries between battles.
- At full charge, a living hero can spend their turn to unleash the party's Limit without spending MP.
- Each living main hero contributes according to their class. Duplicate classes have their own combined sequences, and party position does not change the strength of your composition.
- There is no fixed limit on uses per run. Relics can help you charge faster and use Limits more often.
- Classless contributes exactly what you would expect: Attack.
New Limit relics support different approaches. Bloodbound Drum builds charge when enemies damage your heroes or summons, Untarnished Sigil rewards attacking at full health, and Everlasting Cinder can restore charge after a Limit.
Elemental and Physical Combinations
Your next attack can now do more with the setup your party leaves behind.
- Thermal Shock: Fire consumes an ice setup for bonus damage and spreads Wet to the target and nearby enemies.
- Quench: Ice consumes Burn and spreads Wet, trading ongoing fire damage for another setup.
- Shatter: Physical attacks break an ice setup for bonus damage and spread Wet to nearby enemies.
- Conduct: Lightning consumes Wet for bonus damage and jumps to another Wet enemy.
- Steam Burst: Fire consumes Wet for an immediate damage boost.
- Armor Cascade: Physical attacks against a revealed enemy with Fracture or Pierced Armor can spread damage and armor reduction to nearby foes.
- Venom Spill: This Venom Cut evolution transfers Poison to nearby enemies while applying Bleed to the original target. Ordinary Poison and Bleed can still coexist.
These combinations involve choices. Sometimes you want to consume a status now; sometimes it is worth keeping it for another party member.
New Splash Relics
New unlockable relics let you build around these reactions, including ways to turn them into healing.
A few examples:
- Scatterstone: Increases secondary splash and chain damage.
- Cracked Crucible: Makes Steam Burst splash nearby enemies.
- Rime Bell: Lets Shatter spread Wet across the enemy group.
- Mist Blossom: Heals your party when you successfully spread Wet.
- Grave Chimes: Turns Exorcism into healing for your most injured living hero.
The relic menu also has Splash and Limits filters to help you find these unlocks.
More Elite Variety
Each region now has five elite encounters, bringing the total to 15.
The nine new elites are:
- Dungeon: Veyra, the Hollow Cantor; Garruk, the Chainkeeper; Osswick, the Candle-Eater.
- Lowlands: Mossmother Fenra; Redmaw, Packlord; Siltseer Oru.
- Mountains: Kharzug, Ember Marshal; Ilyra, the Rimebound; Thundervein Colossus.
Elites have more distinct abilities, support minions, and defenses you can counter. Redmaw strengthens his pack, Fenra protects and heals her allies, and Kharzug benefits from keeping his standard bearer alive.
Some elites absorb their associated element and recover health. Matching immunity-breaking relics let that element deal normal damage instead, giving specialized builds a way through.
Encounter selection also remembers which elites you have fought. Repeats become less likely, and campaign regions avoid consecutive repeats when another elite is available.
Support Enemies and Berserk
Three new regional support enemies bring more teamwork to regular encounters:
- Grave Cantor: Strengthens allied undead spellcasters.
- Mire Tender: Gives wounded allies healing over time. Fire can burn that growth away.
- Cinder Standard-Bearer: Protects an ally with a ward that can burn an attacker.
Berserk and Demon Rage now lead straight into a basic attack when cast, making that moment feel more threatening.
Combat, Map, and Menu Improvements
- Reworked spell effects form on their targets, with clearer impacts and damage or healing feedback.
- Improved melee anticipation, lightning chains, and reaction effects.
- Added coordinated Party Limit animations.
- Redesigned the map with round encounter markers, curved paths, and regional decoration.
- Added a Combat Guide to the title and pause menus covering combinations, splash relics, and Party Limits.
- Improved controller navigation and focus recovery.
- Fixed text encoding issues and improved Chinese and Japanese font coverage.
- Added the Warranted startup splash.
Endless Difficulty
Endless now uses your selected difficulty, with +500% as its minimum starting point. Its existing escalation continues from that starting strength, so you can begin higher when you want a tougher run.
Five New Achievements
- Breaking Limits: Use your first Party Limit.
- Encore: Use three Party Limits in one run.
- Chain Reaction: Spread an elemental or physical reaction to another enemy.
- Perfect Storm: Trigger three different reactions in one battle.
- A Restorative Spark: Restore an ally's HP with a splash relic.
That brings Emberspark to 65 achievements. Each new achievement awards 100 permanent points once, claimed through the achievements menu.
Thank you for playing and helping me improve Emberspark. I'm looking forward to hearing which party combinations you enjoy, which elites give you trouble, and what builds you manage to put together.
- Warranted