Merry Christmas everyone!

Just wanted to get this modest update out in time for the holidays. Thank you for all of your well wishes, our daughter was born healthy and happy on Nov. 19th. We've been adjusting to having another one around really well and I'm starting to get back into the swing of work. Wanted to get a small item update out for Christmas and it go a little out of hand. Excited to get back into the full swing of things in the new year. Lots of content planned for next year!

With this update I had three goals:
#1 Add some new items to the game (we haven't had a good item update in a long time).
#2 Smooth out the reward curve so that the player is still getting good upgrades right up to the end of the last branch. Previously I think it often felt like you'd get most of your gear worked out by the mid game and then it was mostly just junk that dropped after that so completing the branches didn't feel quite so rewarding.
#3 A bit of class balancing. I still need to setup some official feedback threads to get some more opinions on where to make changes and of course I'm not really concerned with getting it perfect at this stage in development. Just some changes based on my own gameplay.

MAJOR BALANCE:

• Reverted the Talent-Reqs to the old system which I definitely preferred. So this is like Tier-1: 10/12, Tier-2: 12/14, Tier-3: 14/16.
• Boosted Staff damage as they had an odd progression curve where they started stronger than bows and ended weaker. Mages have also been consistently weaker so this should help them. Tier-1: +1DMG, Tier-2: +2DMG, Tier-3: +2DMG.
• Moved the spike in bow damage from Tier-2 to Tier-3 in order to make those end game drops more rewarding. (5DMG, 7DMG, 8DMG) => (5DMG, 6DMG, 8DMG).
• Moved the spike in staff damage from Tier-2 to Tier-3 in order to make those end game drops more rewarding. (6DMG, 8DMG, 9DMG) => (6DMG, 7DMG, 9DMG).
• Charms now only fit in the weapon slots in order to force a harder choice (you have to give up a weapon). Otherwise they are just a light shield. I plan on making charms (esp Tier-3 charms) quite a bit stronger to compensate.
• Increased monster HP in Branch-1 and beyond by about 10% to somewhat offset a lot of the increased play power I'm pushing into the game at that point.
• Yendor now agros immediately (and plays his dialog) upon entering his room. This is actually just an old bug that hadn't been fixed for a long time. Will adjust some of the rooms for difficulty if needed.

LOOT BALANCE:

• Changed the item drop tiers for a smoother progression. You will no longer get Tier-3 drops before the branches but then you will ONLY get Tier-3 drops in the branches. This pretty much guarantees that you continue to get upgrades. Similarly in Fortress/Palace you will ONLY get Tier-2 drops instead of still having Tier-1 mixed in (which is almost always useless at that point).
• Guaranteed Char-Dev Drops: 33%-Attribute, 33%-Talent, 33%-Enchantment => 25%-Attribute, 25%-Talent, 50%-Enchantment. Another part of this upgrade is pushing a bit more power into the equipment side of character development.
• Acquirement Scrolls will not summon modded equipment (its already useful without summoning +2 Tier-3 Weapons).
• Merchant will always stock equipment of the max loot tier for where he spawns (he will never stock Tier-1 items). This makes his stock much more useful.
• Attribute and Talent Potions: 75GP => 100GP. These are pure stacking upgrades that don't take an equipment slot so I think they should really be the most expensive items in the game. This could be seen as also trying to push more power into the equipment system.

NEW WEAPONS:

• Tier-1: Sharp-Shooters-Bow: +1 range, Perfect-Aim (suggested by Bright Shadow)
• Tier-2: Force-Hammer: 12DMG, (Ability: 5CD, 4 Knock-Back)
• Tier-2: Force-Lance: 9DMG, (Ability: 5CD, 4 Knock-Back)
• Tier-3: Assassins-Blade: 10DMG w/ Poison, +1Stealth, (Ability: Vanish, 10xMelee-Charges)
• Tier-3: Arcane-Blade: 10DMG, 3MP per attack for 1.5x Damage
• Tier-3: Arcane-Bow: 7DMG, 3MP per attack for 1.5x Damage
• Tier-3: Inferno-Blade: 3MP per attack to leave Flaming-Cloud (50%DMG)
• Tier-3: Storm-Chopper: 3MP per attack to shock all enemies touching the targets (50%DMG)
• Tier-3: True-Shot-Bow: 7DMG (applies True-Shot +50% DMG for 1T)
• Tier-3: Inferno-Staff: 9DMG (Ability: Flame-Bolt, 5CD, 3Range, 3DUR)
• Tier-3: Staff-of-Flowing-Thought: 4DMG, 2MP-Regen
• Tier-3: Staff-of-Madness: 9DMG, confuses target for 1T (they will smack an adjacent ally once)
• Tier-3: Staff-of-Channeling: 1T of 50% Magic-Power after attacking.

NEW EQUIPMENT:

• Tier-3: Shield-of-the-Guard: 6Prot, +10% Block per turn standing still (50% max)
• Tier-3: Robe-of-Shielding: +9MP, Spirit Shield
• Tier-3: Blazing-Cloak: 30%rFire, 6DS, 6DMG to all adjacent enemies every turn
• Tier-3: Mask-of-Terror: 50% chance to fear adjacent enemies for 2T
• Tier-3: Telescopic-Goggles: Perfect-Aim and +1Range (extended range)
• Tier-3: Crown-of-Flowing-Thought: +1INT, +1MP-Regen
• Tier-3: Circlet-of-Wind: Levitation, +30% Reflection when not adjacent to walls
• Tier-3: Gloves-of-Draining 3HP-Tap on every melee attack (this could replace gloves of vampire)
• Tier-3: Gloves-of-Absorption 1MP-Tap on every melee attack
• Tier-3: Spring-Sprong-Boots: 1DEX, Cannot Sprint, (Ability: Jump, 0CD, 2SP)
• Tier-3: Boots-of-Grounding: +10%AP per turn standing still (50% max)
• Tier-3: Festering-Boots: leaves a trail of 10DMG, 5DUR, Poison-Gas when sprinting, Gas Immune
• Tier-3: Slippers-of-Swift-Thought: +2MP for each SP spent (sprinting or abilities)

WEAPON BALANCE:
Mostly just moving stuff around to make room in the Tiers for the new weapons. Also there is a general theme of making Tier-3 weapons/equipment stronger.

• Cross-Bow: Tier-2 => Tier-1
• Heavy-Cross-Bow: Tier-3 => Tier-2
• Force-Bow: Tier-3 => Tier-2
• Assassins-Bow: Tier-2 => Tier-3 (+1 Stealth)
• Arcane-Bolt-Staff Tier-3 => Tier-2, Changed from range charging to simple cool-down
• Staff-of-the-Magi: Tier-3 => Tier2, 40% Magic-Power => 30% Magic-Power
• Blade-of-Energy: 3MP => 6MP
• Phantom-Bow 7DMG => 8DMG
• Necrotic-Staff: 50% => 100% spawn Maggot on kills
• Dancing-Blade: 10Melee-Charges => 5Melee-Charges
• Renamed old Force-Lance => Spectral Lance (the one that hits 5 tiles)
• Staff-of-Force: Force-Wall charges 10 => 5
• Remove Energy/Power abilities from Tier-I staves (keep early game items simple)
• Player weapon poison applies the strong poison effect (much much stronger)
• Mace-of-Shielding, Frost-Forged-Hammer: 12DMG => 14DMG (Tier-3 Boost)
• Rapier: 6DMG => 8DMG, Cutlass: 8DMG => 10DMG, Dancing-Blade and Swift-Blade 10DMG => 12DMG (brings them in line with swords).
• Spectral-Lance, Slime-Covered-Harpoon, Spear-Of-Discord, Spear-Of-Confusion 10DMG => 11DMG (Tier-3 Boost)

EQUIPMENT BALANCE:
Again a general theme of trying to boost up Tier-3 equipment to get those late game boosts.

• Mirror-Robe: 10%Refl, 10%Evs => 20%Refl, 20%Evs
• Molten-Forged-Boots: 3ENC, 1Prot, 40%rFire, Lava Immune => 4ENC, 3Prot, 30%rFire, Lava Immune (more in line with other heavy boots)
• Mask-of-Confusion 25% => 50% confuse chance (3T => 2T), -1INT => 0INT
• Robe-of-The-Lich: +1Life-Tap
• Dragon-Scale-Armor 7Prot, 50%Resistance => 7Prot, 1STR, 30%Resistance (makes it more generally useful)
• Ring-of-Spirit-Shielding: 3MP => 0MP (its already really strong for a Tier-II ring)
• Frog-Boots: +1SP => 0SP (also quite strong for Tier-II esp. now with better Jump)

NEW TALENTS:

• Added a generalized Rage mechanic for Berserker-Axe, Battle-Frenzy and War-Cry (see below). Rage is built up and adds a damage bonus for melee, bows and staves, making it a useful mechanic for all classes. Rage up to 5 decreases at 1 point a turn. Rage up to 10 decreases at 2 points a turn. Rage above 10 decreases at 3 points per turn. So its hard to sustain high rage. In order to balance this if its too strong I'd like to just keep increasing this decay so that the Rage mechanic is really encouraging you to play fast and reckless.
• Talent: Battle-Frenzy: generates rage on kills. Upgrade for either more rage per kill or to have better sustain.
• Talent: War-Cry: Replaces Blood-Lust. 20T Cooldown. Stuns all adjacent enemies for 1T and adds a bunch of rage based on how many are adjacent. Upgrade to build more rage, reset cool downs, or fear enemies for 2T instead of stunning.

TALENT BALANCE:
Some nerfs to the overpowered ranger who is still overpowered compared to everyone else. I'm also generally trying to get Tier-3 talents to be much stronger to help with that whole upgrade curve thing. Especially the Tier-3 upgrades should be really strong so your still getting something good in the late game.

• Range-Mastery (Damage): renamed to Point-Blank and removed the additional damage bonus as this is already a really massive upgrade.
• Range-Mastery (Point-Blank): will not carry the initial crit through when Tunnel-Shotting (this was def a bug and is absurdly broken).
• Tunnel-Shot (Damage) +4DMG => +2DMG (honestly it could probably be +0DMG and still be very strong).
• Tunnel-Shot (Damage) the +50% damage per hit will not compound but instead increases linearly from the base damage ex. (28, 42, 63, 95) => (28, 42, 56, 70). This is still probably too strong.
• Power-Shot (Fast): Fixed the tag from KB => F
• Power-Shot (Fast): restores 2SP instead of 1SP on kill shots
• Jump is no longer orthogonally restricted.
• Charge (Cruncher) 300% => 250% crunch (it was almost always a 1-shot kill before)
• Burst-of-Wind: if an enemy is blocked diagonally he will be pushed back orthogonally. This makes it much easier to knock enemies down hallways or along walls. Probably need some UI stuff with little arrows to show this better. Maybe this should be generalized to all knockback?
• Summon-Skeleton (Base): No Cool-Down.
• Summon-Skeleton (Instant): Does not end your turn
• Shock: I want to rename this to Lightning-Strike once I get an animation made of a bolt coming down from the sky. Base range is now increased 2 => 5 and Extended is now increased 4 => 7. Cool-down also increased from 5 => 10. This should be the GOAT AoE type spell.

NEW ANIMATIONS:
I eventually want to get unique animations for every ability and effect so this is a small start. Mostly just a WIP right now. Need to spend a lot more time figuring out how to do animation properly.

• Tunnel-Shot
• Power-Strike
• Life-Spike
• Fire-Ball