Hello, Slayers!
It’s hard to believe that Dauntless: Awakening is only one day away.
One of the biggest changes coming in Dauntless: Awakening is an overhaul of the weapons. This blog isn’t meant to be a comprehensive breakdown of every weapon and every ability - we want you to discover all these weapons for yourself! But we do want to give you a primer on the change, offer an inside look at how we approached the design, and tell you what we’re most excited about.
Weapons… With Personality
In the past, weapons have operated basically the same way within each category. A Hammer would play like a Hammer, etc. etc. And so, aside from Exotics, different “weapons” would really be more like different skins. One of the goals for Awakening is to create a different relationship between a Slayer and their weapon. You won’t just be an “Axe” main, anymore - maybe you’ll turn out to be a “Fury of the Mountain” main instead.
Each class of weapons (Swords, Pikes, etc.) will still share a basic moveset and core combos, however each weapon now also has unique abilities and Talents. For the examples below, we’ll talk about the ones for the umbral Netherlights Chain Blades.
- Special ability
- Eg. Cruel Riftstrike, which allows you to teleport past the closest Behemoth, then turn around and strike it to leave an umbral rift that deals damage over time. When the rift expires, it explodes for Umbral damage
- Passive ability
- Eg. Shadowdodge, where dodging an attack causes an explosion of umbral energy, which can interrupt
- Legendary ability
- Eg. Power Syphon, which performs an umbral slash that steals health from a Behemoth, dealing damage, healing you, and instantly inflicting the umbral status on a random Behemoth part
- Talents, which give you the ability to add enhancements to 2 different buffs, your Special ability, your Passive ability, and your Legendary ability
- Note that you can only activate 3 Talents at a time for each category, so there’s some strategy behind choosing Talents too
Ultimately, what you do with these weapons is up to you (as long as you’re using them to hunt Behemoths… don’t make us revoke your privileges). And with each weapon being so distinct, you may be surprised at what you can do. Like if you prefer to be a tank, but you really like Ostian Repeaters, then the Oathkeepers, with their Shield, Health, and defense boosts will help you live out that fantasy.
Cheating On Your Main
It would a shame to have so many awesome new weapons and NOT let you swap them.
Weapon swapping was actually the first thing that we decided to do during this update, because there are just so many advantages, for both new and seasoned Slayers.
For one thing, we designed Dauntless combat to be easy to pick up for new players. Adding weapon swapping (along with the deep customization we just mentioned on the unique weapons) adds a whole new layer of (the good kind of) complexity, where dedicated Slayers can optimize and customize their builds in unprecedented ways.
Plus there are some pretty immediate gameplay advantages - like being able to swap from a heavy Axe for some up-close-and-personal damage before swapping to Ostian Repeaters from a distance. You can be a menace from anywhere!
Since every weapon has its own element, being able to swap with the hit of a button means you’ve got up to twice as many elements at your disposal at any given moment. Or, just stick to one element if you want! Do what you want, I’m not your dad.
The way Behemoth parts break has gotten kind of wacky over time, so we’re also resetting to a more logical approach to part-breaking. Cutting damage can sever tails, while crushing damage breaks horns and tusks. This is another win for weapon swapping, as you track down particular Behemoth parts.
Not to mention, both your weapon and subweapon gain equal XP!
And last, but certainly not least, weapon swapping, especially weapon swap combos are just COOL! I mean look at this.
Weave between your weapons for as long as your stamina will allow.
On a personal note, the designer of weapon swapping’s personal favourite is the sweet roundhouse kick whenever you swap to Aether Strikers. Make sure you check that one out in the Training Grounds.
Guns That Shoot Frickin’ Raptors
With a new weapon at the heart of Awakening’s new Hunt Pass, designing Alluring Moons was no small task.
When designing a new weapon, the first thing we do is to look for gameplay holes - what haven’t we done yet, that we want Slayers to be able to do? In this case, there was a great opportunity to use some of the ideas we’ve been throwing around regarding pets. The original concept was for this new weapon to actually corrupt nearby fauna to fight for you. It turned out they were rarely in convenient enough places for that to be advantageous, so instead, the new weapon actually summons the new fauna, Chaoxes.
From there, Ostian Repeaters were the weapon type that made the most sense for this summoning ability, since you’d be able to trigger it at a far enough distance to leverage those Chaoxes properly.
The original name for the repeaters was Umbral Moons, which then changed to Corrupting Moons, before landing on Alluring Moons (since they “Lure” the Chaoxes). Just how much luring can you do? Between the Leader of the Pack Legendary ability (which summons a unique, mutated Chaox), your Special ability, and Talents, you can actually have up to 7 Chaoxes fighting for you at once! Talk about chaox-tic.
Alluring Moons is available immediately upon purchase of Dauntless: Awakening’s Elite Hunt Pass. And Level 50 contains the Alluring Moons-inspired repeater transmog - Alluring Suns.
As always, we want to hear what you think about weapons in this new phase of Dauntless, the Alluring Moons, and everything else coming in Dauntless: Awakening.
We can’t wait for you to play it… TOMORROW!
Until then, Slayers,
Clear skies!
