Sharpen Your Skills marks the first major content expansion for Dauntless. We’ve been working hard since launching the Closed Beta, iterating on community feedback and honing the Dauntless experience. Sharpen your Skills is the biggest Dauntless patch to date and introduces two brand new Behemoths, a fifth weapon, completely overhauled matchmaking and progression, an armour/weapon customization system, and much more!

ONE TEAM. ONE DREAM.

Damage Types and Combat Revamp

Sharpen Your Skills brings major changes to combat in Dauntless by introducing damage types that change the way Slayers consider their weapon choice, role within their team, and most importantly, how they decide to approach each and every Behemoth encounter

Slayers now have multiple damage types to choose from, allowing a party to cater their weapon selection to the hunt. Each of the damage types have their own unique benefit and effect on the Behemoth. This is furthered by the introduction of damage numbers which allows Slayers to see how effective and impactful their attacks are in real time.

This is a big change to combat flow, and we’re excited to see how players coordinate and optimize their loadouts. Get more in-depth information about damage types and the updated combat system.

SURGICAL STRIKE

The War Pike

The war pike accentuates the new damage system by exposing Behemoth parts and allowing Slayers that target the affected parts to do more damage. After unleashing a carefully aimed flurry to expose the Behemoths weaknesses, Slayers can launch precise ranged assaults, staggering their quarry with immense force.

Want to main the war pike? Get the specs on how it works in our combat update.

SHAKE THE CHORDS OF THE EARTH

Skarn

Skarn fears no Slayer. It remains resolute and utilizes aetheric magnetism to throw powerful, punishing attacks at Slayers who are unlucky enough to get drawn in.

Feel bold enough to take on a Skarn? Learn what you can expect to go up against.

WEAKNESS COMPELS STRENGTH

Kharabak

Kharabak rapidly swarms the party out of nowhere with precise, calculated strikes. It’s a highly mobile predator that will leave even the most experienced Slayers who hunt it bloodied and bewildered after the onslaught.

Think you’ve got perfect dodge rolls? Put that to the test against the precision and fury of Kharabak. Would you like to know more?

PERFECT WARRIOR

The Cell System

In Sharpen Your Skills, players can now add cells to their weapons and armour, allowing them to sculpt their playstyle to their unique strengths or focus on what best serves the hunt as a whole.

With the introduction of the cell system, armour aspects find themselves in a transitional phase. Many of the old aspects simply didn’t play nice with this new direction. We also want players to feel like the power potential of their gear matched the Behemoth they had to fight to get it. To that end, we have removed them from all armour sets except for gear crafted from Ragetail Gnasher, Moonreaver Shrike, and Deadeye Quillshot, which all feature re-tuned aspects.

The intention going forward is that as players encounter deadlier versions of Behemoths, the weapons and armour they craft from them will be capable of much more. New versions of aspects that players loved will make a reappearance alongside all-new, expectation defying effects. For a preview of this, we recommend taking Rezakiri and Shrowd’s weapons for a spin. More specifics on how cells completely change the way Slayers hunt can be found here.

YOUR LEGEND REBORN

New progression system and daily/weekly hunts

There’s no predicting what new threat may be stalking the Shattered Isles. We’ve overhauled our hunt system completely and separated Behemoths by their difficulty into separate regions. Slayers will tackle Patrols Hunts that pit them against any of the beasts that dwell in these domains. Once a Slayer has discovered enough intel, they will be able to embark on a Pursuit Hunt to target the exact Behemoth they want to slay. This will allow them to get the last specific pieces they need to finish crafting more powerful weapons and armour.

After making their way through the known regions, Slayers will be able to depart on daily and weekly hunts to help keep the surging Behemoths at bay. These time specific events come with awesome benefits and rewards that will call even the most comfortable Slayers to arms.

As a result of this progression overhaul, all player accounts will be reset in order to put them in line with the new progression flow. Want to know more about what is changing? All the specifics can be found here.

Patch Notes

Weapons and Armour

• Added new weapon — the war pike.
• Added a brand new equipment augmentation system. Slayers will be able to augment their weapons and armour with cells. With this patch, we are adding over 200 new cells to Dauntless and plan to continue to add more in the future. This is a brand new system that we will continue to tweak and refine as we gather information.
• Added multiple damage types to Dauntless including blunt, piercing and slashing. Each of these damage types have their own hunt advantages.
  • Blunt is great for staggering Behemoths to allow the rest of your party to get free hits. It is especially effective against heads and legs.
  • Piercing exposes Behemoth parts, which amplifies the damage that the affected part takes. Slayers using Slashing weapons should capitalize on this as they will do exponentially more damage and can get much quicker part breaks.
  • Slashing is the critical to getting part breaks and severing limbs. Carefully placed part breaks can completely change the dynamic of a hunt, and are the key to success for any Slayer.
• Newly added damage numbers convey the amount and type of damage being done:
• Grey is regular damage which is caused by any attack to the Behemoth.
• Blue is stagger damage which is caused by blunt damage or attacks that are interrupting or knocking down a Behemoth.
• Red is expose damage which is caused by piercing damage that works to increase the damage that the affected part takes.
• Yellow is part damage which is damage that is specifically done to that limb in an attempt to break it. This is where slashing weapons shine.
• Defined which weapon attacks can interrupt Behemoth attacks. Our goal is to increase and reward skill around interrupts, making them more challenging in exchange for better rewards in the form of longer staggers. Note that any attack made with a weapon socketed with an “interrupt cell” can interrupt an attack. These changes will impact weapons in the following ways:
• Hammer: Dodge evade blast cannot interrupt.
• War pike: Primary attacks cannot interrupt.
• Chain blades: No attacks (by default) can interrupt.
• Sword: Special attack projectiles can’t interrupt.
• Axe: Special attack projectiles can’t interrupt.
• Added new weapons and armour models.
• Added new Quillshot sword, axe, hammer, and chain blades.
• Added new Hellion sword, hammer, and chain blades.
• Added new Shrowd hammer, and chain blades.
• Added new Rezakiri sword, axe, hammer, and chain blades.
• Added new Nayzaga sword, axe hammer, chain blades, and armours.
• Added new Charrogg sword, axe, chain blades, and armours.
• Added new Stormclaw axe, hammer, and chain blades.
• Added new Kharabak sword, axe, hammer, chain blades, and armours.
• Added new Skarn sword, axe, hammer, chain blades, and armours.
• All Radiant and Umbral weapons now have custom elemental audio.
• Adjusted weapon hitboxes so Slayers using the sword or hammer should feel like they are connecting more accurately.
• Added the ability for players to ‘prime’ all hammer hits with an ammo charge by quickly pressing the secondary attack during the wind-up of an attack. If the player times it right and presses their special attack during the end of the hit, they will immediately ‘quick reload’ and replace the shot they just used. This helps make the hammer combat more skillful by offering a higher risk-reward benefit for players.
• Added new quick and normal versions of the hammer secondary attack blast. The quick version of the attack can be executed after dodge rolls. The normal version is available at all other times.
• Made improvements to the chain blades pull so that players will no longer end up behind or shoot past the Behemoth when using special attacks.
• Balanced the chain blades ‘Blender’ attack so that it will now do double damage per hit but it will only perform one hit per spin of the blades (instead of three).
• Standardized armour and weapon progression. All weapons and armour can now be upgraded to tier 5 (maximum). Except for Borrowed pieces which will only go to tier 3.
• Redesigned Weapon impact audio system. Sounds are now more reflective of the amount and nature of the damage inflicted to the Behemoth.

Behemoths

• Added new Behemoth — Skarn.
• Added new Behemoth — Kharabak.
• Various balance changes to make Behemoth staggers work more appropriately with the new damage types.
• Added new systems that better show damage progression on Behemoths for exposed parts, severed limbs, and scarred tissue on parts that have already been broken.
• Slightly increased the stagger time and cooldown for Shrowd’s Doomsday Orb and Clone (when at low health) to make it less spammy.
• Adjusted Pangar’s hitboxes to more closely match the model and make hits from its rolling attacks more fair and accurate.
• Tweaked Shrike’s four swipe attack so that it can no longer juggle players for all four hits.
• Players will no longer be damaged by Drask when it’s consuming aether to heal.
• Added new VFX and SFX to make the difference between a stagger and a part break more clear and apparent.
• Reworked Blaze VFX across all Behemoths to improve appearance.
• Added multiple new Skarn and Kharabak Flares and Sigils.
• Added shock VFX to Drask’s patrol roar.
• Fixed a bug that caused Charrogg’s broken vent VFX to remain after the Behemoth was slain.
• Fixed a bug that caused Stormclaw’s shock VFX to remain after the Behemoth was slain.
• Fixed a bug that caused Embermane’s blaze VFX to improperly load.
• Fixed a bug that sometimes caused Moonreaver Shrike to not damage players with its backhand attacks.

Quality of Life

• Improved elemental damage and resistance to make it more impactful for players. Fighting a Behemoth with armour that has appropriate resistance is now much more important since elemental Behemoths have been tweaked to do more elemental damage than physical damage.
• Overhauled the way that cores work, rewards now drop directly from slaying the Behemoth rather than being contained in cores. Slayers will gain Aether Core Points (ACP) that will work to unlock Aether Cores that may contain cells, schematics, currencies, gatherables, and much more. Currently these only drop cells. This will be changed in a future patch.
• Revamped and improved staggers to add minor and major staggers that affect Behemoths differently.
• Improved weapon feedback to feel much more impactful when a player lands a big hit.
• Implemented an AFK system that will kick players back to the main menu if they have been AFK for 10 minutes. Please let us know how this affects your sessions!
• Entire audio system updated, resulting in improved performance, more complex sound occlusion and various new features. This required a remix of the entire game, which now stands at over 10,000 sounds!
• After numerous requests from players, we have added hunt time and danger back to End of Hunt screen. :Trihard:
• Tweaked weapon scale so that mass and size of the weapons feel more consistent and appropriate.
• Guild Leaders can now promote/demote members. Promoted Guild Officers have the ability to invite other Slayers into the guild and cancel outstanding invites.
• Improved friends list user interface for improved use and navigation.
• Overhauled Main Menu screen to make it more intuitive and appealing.
• New Options Menu featuring more resolutions, Windowed Borderless, a Motion Blur slider, and the ability to toggle Vsync. We will continue to add more robust options in the future, stay tuned!
• Improved audio for transitions between loading to gameplay. Sounds will no longer start early prior to the game loading.
• Fixed a bug that caused players to “stick” to Behemoths when dodging.

Ramsgate and the Shattered Isles

• We have overhauled progression from top to bottom. Players will now gain Slayer Rank points and rewards for the Pursuit Hunts, Patrol Hunts, and Quests they complete. Players will see new quests and regions based on their Slayer rank. In addition to this, Slayers will have the option to embark on daily and weekly timed hunts that will challenge their skills. Slayers are able to see their current rank while in the Escape menu.
• Added a new pre-hunt lobby that takes place on the airship. Before dropping in, Slayers can modify and update their loadouts to complement their teammates. As part of this new pre-hunt flow we are removing the option for players to queue for Solo Hunts in favour of them partying up with other Slayers. Note: Solo queues are only temporarily disabled and will be coming back. The new lobby will be patched in next week once we work out some kinks.
• Revamped the gathering process while on hunts. There are now more gatherables of each type but each gathering action yields fewer items. This process has become instantaneous so Slayers can now spend less time harvesting and more time looking at cool mushrooms.
• Improved the overall - a e s t h e t i c - of gathering while on hunts with improved visuals.
• Reorganized the Hunt Board to make it easier to use and added information to better show players how their elemental resistances will impact their hunts.
• When the Hunt Board is empty, players will now be given guidance to help them find the right NPCs to speak with in order to unlock the first few hunts.
• Players will now see their helmet visibility settings reflected in arrival cinematics.
• UI will better inform the player when a weapon or armour is at max level, and will not prompt additional materials for crafting.
• Players will no longer see alerts over the heads of NPCs without quests.
• Replaced placeholder voiceovers with professional voiceovers for all of the NPCs in Ramsgate.
• NPCs will now randomly talk to themselves when idle and will call the player over if they have an available quest.
• NPCs now occasionally speak when crafting items, with different responses depending on the item’s significance.
• NPCs will not greet the player with a VO line stating they ‘want to chat’, unless they have a meaningful interaction available.
• Fixed invisible collision in several areas of Ramsgate. Praise roof people \o/
• Fixed a bug that caused mushrooms to float away from trees on islands. whoaaaaah!

Etcetera

• Removed Chroma Cores in Dauntless in favour of having players purchase the specific cosmetics they want. In place of this, if you purchase a Founders Pack, instead of Chroma Cores, you will get 1000 Platinum to spend in the Store!
• Champion/Patron boosts now augment the amount of Core Points you gather during hunts. Core Points “fill up” cores which can then be opened in Ramsgate core breakers.
• Behemoth part breaks will now visually drop and need be picked up. Slayers must complete the hunt if they want to return to Ramsgate with their break parts.
• Added a new currency called notes to Dauntless. Slayers will be rewarded with notes for successful hunts and may receive them from opening aether cores. These are used to pay for upgrading weapons and armour (in addition to the requisite parts).
• Players are now able to salvage all gatherables and break parts for an amount of notes.
• Doubled the amount of healing that Slayers get from airship drops.
• Gathered items and break parts will now show a stack count on the end of match screen.
• Added current Boosts to the HUD to make it more apparent to players what is active.
• Updated names for Behemoth break parts, gatherable fauna, and archonite to be more appropriate and consistent.
• Added sounds for aether wisps, fauna drops and other gatherables.
• Replaced dyes that players start with. Players will now start with Straw and Chocolate, and for a limited time can get four more for free from the in-game store! The rest will be able to be purchased individually and in bundles to allow players to pick and choose which ones they want. Collect ‘em all!
• Changed the colour of ore, catalyst, and crystal nodes so that they match the gatherable names and allow players to distinguish based on the colour.
• When sending a chat message to change the chat channel you are in, it will now properly switch between the two.
• Improved Core Breaker lighting effects to better show the colour of the rarity during opening.
• Various Guild UI changes to make it more intuitive to players.
• Made improvements to reduce the chances of players pretzeling. Dabbing or bottle flipping to appeal to teens may result in pretzelitis.
• Cleaned up and improved the dye selection process.
• Updated and changed weapon names to be more consistent and removed temporary filler text.
• Added option which allow players to clear their title.
• Added new music to the character creator and tutorial level.
• Miscellaneous performance improvements in Ramsgate.
• Fixed a bug that caused some players to get stuck on the loading screen while entering the tutorial island.
• Fixed a bug that sometimes caused players to receive party chat from parties they weren’t in. Made it so the chat UI will now show the proper general channel (city or island) when chatting.
• Fixed a bug where the player’s face sometimes went invisible in the character creator. Dauntless is now 23.4% less spooky.
• Fixed a bug that caused players to get stuck in the clouds when escaping to the main menu while creating a new character.
• Fixed a bug where characters could have one emote assigned to two different slots.
• Fixed a bug that caused the unsheathe animation to repeat if a player attempted to sheathe their weapon repeatedly.
• Fixed a bug that caused some players to spawn with armour for the other body type.
• Fixed a bug that caused hair to poke through helmets and sometimes caused Slayer faces to disappear.
• Fixed a bug that caused the tutorial popup for new players to be washed out and difficult to read.

Known Issues

• Menus, icons, and controller support are a continued work in progress. Please use a mouse and keyboard where a controller is not fully supported. There may be menus where controllers do not function properly.
• We’re continuing to optimize and improve performance, especially in Ramsgate. If your game is crashing while joining or while in Ramsgate, please try lowering your graphic settings (especially resolution).
• The newly added systems are a continued work in progress and will continue to be tweaked and changed as we gather feedback and data from players.
• Do not log into Dauntless from multiple places at the same time. It will lead to account data corruption.
• If you are in a party and your game crashes, you will need to leave that party before you can depart on a new hunt.
• If you collect more than 65,000 notes, the balance will stop displaying properly but will continue to accumulate.
• When you salvage an item, you will need to fully exit the menus before the notes show up in your inventory.
• When you purchase any items from the in-game store, you will need to fully exit the menus before they will show up in your inventory.
• Founders credits are currently missing from the main menu, we are aware and are working to add this back ASAP!
• Skarn and Kharabak will not drop style cores, we are currently looking into why this is.
• Behemoths may occasionally walk in irregular patterns. Fix this by slaying them.

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