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March 30th, 2020
Idle Champion Spotlight: Melf 
Posted in Idle Champions.

Today's Idle Champion Spotlight is a bit special for us. We are always honored to be able to include legacy characters in Idle Champions, most recently with Artemis Entreri, and before that with the Companions of the Hall. Today we are very excited to introduce you all to Prince Brightflame, better known as Melf, an elven Fighter/Wizard created and played by Luke Gygax, son of one of the co-creators of Dungeons & Dragons, Gary Gygax.

Yes, THAT Melf! Creator of such spells as Melf's Acid Arrow and Melf's Minute Meteors.

We had our work cut out for us - but at the same time, we were blessed with the opportunity to work with Luke to bring his lifelong D&D character to life! Would you like to know more? Read on...

I. Prince Brightflame

Dungeons & Dragons Melf

    Born into the royal family of Celene, he assumed the simple name of Melf eschewing a life of comfort as a noble to study the arcane arts and train as a swordsman. He delved in the dungeons of Castle Greyhawk, the Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth and many other harrowing places honing his skills, knowledge and amassing powerful magic items. Melf sees himself as a weapon of weal hurtling toward the heart of the darkest evils in the realm. He is opinionated and has a touch of conceit that he is blissfully ignorant of possessing.

Melf is a Fighter and Wizard Support Champion. His legendary spellbook is filled with versatile Support Spells, offering a variety of potential damage buffs and speed boosts. When you want to add Melf to your formation, you can swap him with Arkhan (Slot 12).

II. Melf's Stats

Race: Elf Alignment: Neutral Good
Class: Fighter/Wizard Gender: Male
Age: 210 Affiliation: none

STR: 17 DEX: 15 CON: 14
INT: 19 WIS: 11 CHA: 10

Role: Support
Eligible for Patrons: Mirt the Moneylender, Vajra Safahr, Strahd von Zarovich


Dungeons & Dragons Melf

III. Designing Melf

Having the opportunity to bring Melf into Idle Champions was a real treat for us at Codename Entertainment. Not just because we were bringing a legendary character from Dungeons & Dragon's past into the spotlight, but because we try to work directly with the creators of each character whenever possible. This time around, we got to work closely with Luke Gygax!

Luke was excited to hop on board and help us out, and he would regale us with tales of Melf, telling stories about playing Dungeons & Dragons as a child with his father as his Dungeon Master. To the rest of the world, Gary Gygax is the icon who helped to create the greatest role-playing game of all time. But to Luke? He was playing D&D with his Dad, who just happened to be 'the' Gary Gygax.

Over the course of our conversations and email exchanges Luke shared stories with us about how each of Melf's items came to be in his possession, often in incredible detail despite the events having occurred during games in his childhood. Melf has been a character for a long time, and Luke still has all of his character sheets, some of them written completely out on lined paper decades ago. Wow!

So what does all that leave us with? Well, we honed in on some of Melf's legendary artifacts and spells, choosing to craft for him an extremely versatile set of formation abilities that can be tailored to a variety of formations and situations. Melf's Adaptive Support Spell and Melf's Augmented Support Spell help you to refine your DPS buffs in a way that best works for you. At the same time, Melf's Speedy Supplement offers a mix of options for increasing the speed at which you complete adventures and variants.

Melf's legendary weapon, Zagyg's Needle, starts off being his Basic Attack, but once you combine it with his Ultimate Ability, Melf's Minute Meteors, things really start to get interesting, adding massive damage and AoE to Melf's attacks.

At this point you might be asking yourself, "Where is Melf's Acid Arrow?" -- but if you look closely, you'll find it ;)

IV. Melf's Abilities

Basic Attack

  • Zagyg’s Needle — Melf leaps out and attacks the nearest enemy with his magic spear. If Melf has any Minute Meteors active, he fires one at a random enemy as well.

Formation Abilities

  • Melf's Adaptive Support Spell — Melf creates a new spell to assist the formation. He customizes it based on the Champions in the formation and where Melf is placed within it. It increases the damage of Champions adjacent to Melf by 100% and that value is augmented based on some other parameters, each of which applies multiplicatively.
    • If there is another Elf (aside from Melf) in the formation, increase the effect by 50%.
    • Increase the range by 2 if Melf is not in the front-most or rear-most columns in the formation (affects all champions within 3 slots).
    • Increase the effect by 10% for each unique race in the formation.
    This ability is buffed by upgrades and equipment (buffs apply to the final calculated value, not the individual increases).
  • Melf's Augmented Support Spell — Melf augments his Adaptive Support Spell for each Champion it affects.
    • Increase the effect by 50% on the non-dominant gender in the formation (applies to non-binary champions all the time).
    • Increase the effect by 50% for each slot away from Melf a Champion is (multiplicatively)
  • Melf's Speedy Supplement — Melf provides one of the following effects at random. A new effect is chosen at random every 50 areas (though it could pick the same one multiple times in a row).
    • Increase chance to spawn an additional enemy with each wave by 25%.
    • Increase enemy spawn speed by 25%.
    • Increase chance of double quest drops by 25%.
    This ability is buffed by equipment; note if the chance of double quest drops gets above 100% it will then always cause double quest drops with a chance to cause triple quest drops, etc. Likewise with spawning additional enemies with each wave.
  • Melf's Righteous Determination — Melf knows exactly what evil is. Whenever an enemy spawns it has a 50% chance of being deemed "evil" by Melf. Enemies that are deemed evil take 100% more damage from all Ultimate attacks.

Specializations

  • Bonus Adaption — Increases the effect of Melf's Adaptive Support Spell by 100%.
  • Extra Supplements — Increase the effect of Melf's Speedy Supplement by 100%.
  • Absolute Righteousness — Increase the effect of Melf's Righteous Determination by 100%.

Ultimate Ability

  • Melf's Minute Meteors — Melf summons six Minute Meteors that float around him. They are fired when he attacks normally and deal BUD-based damage to all enemies in a small area.

V. Melf's Legendary Equipment



Slot 1: Global DPS
Slot 2: Global DPS
Slot 3: Adaptive Support Spell
Slot 4: Speedy Supplement
Slot 5: Righteous Determination
Slot 6: Ultimate Damage

VI. Conclusion

What do you think about Melf? Will he fit into any of your formations? Let us know your thoughts, that we may flay them! If you have feedback, let us know in a Community Q&A or Champion feedback post on the Idle Champions Subreddit, on the Steam forums, or on the Official Idle Champions Discord!
March 30th, 2020
Idle Champions Coloring Sheets 
Posted in Idle Champions.

Coloring in pictures are a surprisingly pleasant to way to relax. We've seen time and again at different conventions that attending fans love to stop by our booth and take 10 minutes to fill in one of our many sheets.

However, we haven't had a good way to release the sheets to all of you who aren't lucky enough to meet-up with us at a convention. That is, until now: below you will find our entire collection of available coloring sheets as of today. However, we're going to be releasing more in the coming weeks!

Starting this week, we will release a community chest code for every 100 examples of completed coloring sheets you share!

All you have to do is post your examples to our Facebook page, post to your Twitter or Instagram feed and tag @idlechampions on Twitter or @idle_champions on Instagram, and include the hashtag #idlecoloring.

Or if you prefer to you can submit your creation to fan_art on our Discord server or upload to our subreddit.

We can't wait to see what you come up with!

Click the Thumbnails to Download the PDF

March 27th, 2020
BW2: Generation 12 Pets are Here! 

Gotta find 'em all! A new selection of critters are now available to be your companions!

Those weirdly random abandoned eggs scattered all over Bushwhackia have been switched up and all new pets are ready to hatch when you accept the "Find an Egg" quest from Misty. She will also have all the Generation 12 eggs available to purchase for Bush Bucks during the "Find an Egg" quest.


Other changes to Misty and Hank for Generation 12:
  • Misty will no longer let players abandon Gen 11 pet eggs that they are hatching (they're now too rare). Only current generation pet eggs can be abandoned during hatching. Please note that if you're in the middle of hatching a pet, then that egg will still hatch into whatever pet it would have been before.

  • Generation 11 pet eggs can now be found in Quester's Satchels (with the same limitations as the Generation 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 eggs, which will still be available in satchels as well.)

  • Hank now sells a random assortment of hatched level 1 Generation 12 pets (instead of Generation 11) for Bush Bucks in his pet store.

PAGAS changes for Generation 12:
  • Generation 12 pet eggs are available to buy with DNA in the PAGAS store, once you have hatched at least five Generation 12 pets. This include 9 unique variations of the new pets.

  • The Pet Progress dialog now includes Generation 12 pets. Another 19 new pets that all players can unlock!
New Achievements:
In addition to these new pets, there are 5 new achievements you can get for raising 10, 25, 50, 75, and 100 different pets to level 40!

And now, without further ado, the information you've all been waiting for:

Generation 12 Pets:
  • Coyote
  • Liger
  • Blue-Ringed Octopus
  • Flying Fish
  • Roadrunner
  • Raven
  • Black Bear
  • Eyesberg
  • Lurker
  • Snarky
Comment on the new additions on the forum!
March 27th, 2020
BW2: March 27th, 2020 Release Notes 
Posted in Bush Whacker 2.

Generation 12 Pets (March 27th, 2020)

- 10 new pets are now in rotation for Misty’s pet raising quests!
- Added 9 new unique variations of the gen 12 pets to the PAGAS egg store.
- Added 5 new achievements for leveling a number of pets to level 40.
- Added a PAGAS Pet Progress reward tier for 650 unique pets.

- Fixed an exception being sometimes thrown when you re-open the pet sale dialog.

- Fixed Secret Area 90 not counting towards the secret area achievements.

- Moved the achievements for the Coppers of the Creature Collector mini event to their own Legacy subcategory.

- Made progress on the downloadable client.

- Fixed various reported typos and quest descriptions. Keep the reports coming!
March 27th, 2020
COTLI: Superhero Spring 5! 

No matter how perilous the world becomes, hope still remains.

An ageless paragon of hope has arrived to save the day! Adina the Wonderful embodies power and grace, and she's here to lead the Hero League to victory...

Superhero Spring 5 has begun!

This year's event runs until Wednesday, April 8th at 12PM PDT, introducing Adina the Wonderful and bringing back Deathpuddle, Thoonoose, Foresight, Arachnobuddy, Metal Soldierette, and Bat Billionaire!

New Tier 5 Crusader: Adina the Wonderful

Power. Grace. Wonder. Words are not quite enough to describe the latest Crusader, Adina the Wonderful.

As a Paragon, Adina increases Global DPS for each Superhero Crusader in the formation. Justice for All allows Adina to make heroes of the Crusaders around her, giving the Superhero tag to adjacent Crusaders in the formation. Her Hero League ability causes the Self-DPS formation abilities of Crusaders in her column to apply to all other Crusaders in the column at 10% effectiveness (note: this cannot be propogated or mimicked).

With Ageless Life Adina's DPS is multiplied 4x for every 25 levels over (and including) 200. Her Growing Compassion and Be True abilities increase Global DPS. And finally, as an Expert Commander Adina allows the formation abilities of Crusaders in her column to be active regardless of their requirements (note: this cannot be propogated).

An ageless hero that embodies wonder, power, and grace, Adina the Wonderful is sure to lead any heroic formation to victory!

New Tier 5 Objectives

  • Recruit Adina the Wonderful | Adina the Wonderful takes up a slot in the formation. Disables the DPS and upgrades of the Crusaders in the columns in front of and behind her.
    Reach area 400.

  • The Fates | The three aspects of fate occupy slots in the formation. They randomly spawn special fate monsters to attack you. All non-boss areas are changed to kill 3 fates.
    Reach area 450.

  • Leaving the Island | Duel your way past all the Goddesses to win the right to leave the island.
    Reach area 475.

  • The Club of Justice | Only Superhero Spring Crusaders, and Crusaders adjacent to at least 3 Superhero Spring Crusaders, can deal DPS.
    Reach area 500.

  • Living Through the Ages | Area 1 to 100: Only base 20 and Tier 1 Crusaders can be used. Area 101 to 200: Only Tier 2 Crusaders can be used. Area 201 to 300: Only Tier 3 Crusaders can be used. Area 301 to 400: Only Tier 4 Crusaders can be used. Area 401 onwards: Only Tier 5 Crusaders can be used. On death, normal monsters spawn more monsters with special powers.
    Reach area 525.

Help! Where’s the Loot?

Equipment for event Crusaders can be found in Silver and Jeweled Superhero Chests, which you can earn from objectives and the free play or buy in the shop. Each non-recruitment objective will drop a chest for its given tier of Crusaders, and free play will drop All Tier chests. Gear for Tier 2, Tier 3, Tier 4 and Tier 5 Crusaders will only appear in All Tier chests once you've unlocked the respective Crusaders. You can select the tier of chest you buy in the shop when you go to purchase chests with real money or event currency.

What About Older Event Crusaders?

Previously-available Superhero Spring Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3, and Tier 4 Crusaders are once again available to unlock as part of Superhero Spring 5. For more information about those Crusaders, check out our Event Blogs from previous years:


Players will have until Wednesday, April 8th at 12:00PM PDT to complete Superhero Spring 5.
March 25th, 2020
Idle Champions: v1.0 & Spring Extravaganza 
Posted in Idle Champions.

    Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?
    “With your help we expect to go to full launch in three to six months from Early Access launch.”

~Idle Champions, September 2017


Looking back, we were pretty ambitious in thinking that we would be able to fully develop all the features we were planning for Idle Champions within six months of launching on Steam. Since then we have expanded upon our vision, developing features that are the foundation for a long term live service game. It has been a long journey to get to this point, and we are eternally thankful to the community and the team here at CNE for helping us to get to this point. Thank you!

The time has come to leave Early Access, and to officially launch Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms v1.0!

If you're interested in learning more about what's coming with today's update, you've come to the right place...

Table of Contents


Dungeons & Dragons Spring Extravaganza

Spring Extravaganza

With the launch of Idle Champions v1.0 we wanted to have a bit of a celebration. We decided upon doing something similar to our Second Anniversary Celebration, with daily rewards you can claim once each 24-hours. Players who claim rewards on at least four days will be able to earn exclusive rewards!

Dungeons & Dragons Spring Extravaganza Daily Rewards

Daily Rewards

Each daily chest grants you four awesome items, hand-picked by the team here at Codename Entertainment to help you in your adventures.

These rewards are unlocked once you have claimed at least four days worth of rewards during the Spring Extravaganza.

  • Exclusive "Champion Minsc" Skin
  • A Rare "+1 CON" Feat for Celeste
  • 5 Gold Chests

Dungeons & Dragons Spring Extravaganza General Updates

General Updates

Today's update includes a number of changes to Idle Champions, some of which we expect to create significant changes to the meta, including: a Formation Saves update, changes to Ultimate ability balance, a Champion Balance update, and a Level Soft Cap Increase.

Dungeons & Dragons Spring Extravaganza Formation Saves

Formation Saves Update

For a while now, we received requests to expand the ability to save formations from our current three save slots to reflect the changes in formations needed over the course of a run, and also allow for more flexibility to try new formation combinations.

Today we have increased the number of formations you can save from 3 to 50(!), and included an updated UI to allow players to better track individual saved formations for each of their campaigns.

For more information, including our Formation Saves FAQ, check out our Formation Saves Update Dev Blog.

Dungeons & Dragons Spring Extravaganza Ultimate Balance

Ultimate Balance Changes

Ultimate attacks will no longer have their damage increased by debuffs on enemies.

Affected abilities include, but may not be limited to: Minsc's "Go for the Eyes!" (ultimate debuff portion), Gromma's "Spiked Shell", Strix's "Poor Hygiene", Catti-brie's "Mark for Death", Donaar's "Command: Flee", Warden's "Hex", Aila's "Storm Soul/Storm Aura", Spurt's "Wa-speration: Skunky", Krull's "Plague: Pain", Minsc's "Favored Enemies", and Regis' "Ruby Weakness".

For information on the rationale behind these changes, check out our Champion Balance Update (March 2020) Dev Blog or the in-game Change Log.

Dungeons & Dragons Spring Extravaganza Champion Balance

Champion Balance Update

Today's update sees updates to the remaining Champions not included in last year's update to Year One Champion Balance update. Champions included in this review are Deekin Scalesinger, Ishi Snaggletooth, Dhadius the Scarlet, Krond, Hitch, Birdsong, Barrowin Undurr, Strix Beestinger, and Azaka Stormfang. Two of these Champions, Gromma and Azaka, received little-to-no changes; we are keeping our eyes on how the anticipated meta shift with this update affects these two, and we may make changes to them in the future.

For Detailed information on these changes, check out our Champion Balance Update (March 2020) Dev Blog or the in-game Change Log.

Dungeons & Dragons Spring Extravaganza New Patron Strahd von Zarovich

New Patron: Strahd von Zarovich

Another Patron has arrived! Count Strahd von Zarovich joins Mirt the Moneylender and The Blackstaff, Vajra Safahr, as the third Patron in Idle Champions. Those seeking to serve the Lord of Castle Ravenloft will need to unlock at least 40 Champions (including Core and Evergreen Champions) and complete the Towering Expectations adventure in the Grand Tour of the Sword Coast campaign. Once these criteria are met, players can spend 10 Rare Bounty Contracts and 20 Silver Chests to unlock Strahd von Zarovich as a Patron!

Strahd suffers no fools to run his errands. With Strahd as your Patron, only Champions with an INT score of 13+ can be used.

Dungeons & Dragons Spring Extravaganza New Patron Strahd von Zarovich Familiars

New Patron Familiars

New Familiars have appeared in the Patron Shops! Complete weekly challenges and Patron variants for Mirt the Moneylender, Vajra Safahr, or Strahd von Zarovich to earn your Flameskull, Spider, or Toy Werewolf Familiars.

Dungeons & Dragons Spring Extravaganza New Patron Strahd von Zarovich Skins

New Patron Skins

Champions who find themselves in service of Strahd von Zarovich will have access to unique rewards, including the Vistani Regis Skin and the Vampire Catti-brie Skin through the Patron Shop.

Dungeons & Dragons Spring Extravaganza New DLC

New DLC Packs

Two new DLC Packs are now available!

The Shade Artemis Skin & Feat Pack unlocks the Artemis Shade Skin, the ‘Part Shade’ Epic Feat, 7 Gold Artemis Chests, and a Potion of Polish. It will also unlock the Artemis Entreri Champion if you don't already have them.

The Iron Pup Familiar Pack will unlock the Iron Pup Familiar, an assortment of epic potions and contracts, and two Potions of Polish.


Feedback Wanted!

These changes are scheduled to go live at approximately 9:00AM PDT on Wednesday, March 25th. We very much look forward to your feedback, so please let us know what you think in a Community Q&A or feedback post on the Idle Champions Subreddit, a post on the Steam forums, or on the Official Idle Champions Discord!

Enjoy :)
March 24th, 2020
Dev Blog: Champion Balance Update (March 2020) 
Posted in Idle Champions.

Since July of last year we've had an item on our 'to-do list' that we've been pushing further and further back. First it was to make room in our development schedule for Feats, then came Patrons, followed by Patron Challenges & Advanced Effects Descriptions, Updated Time Gates, and Offline Progress.

It has been a busy 8 months! But we never forgot about finishing our balance update for our remaining Year One Champions, and today we're going to talk about the updates to those Champions coming with our v1.0 Launch / Spring Extravaganza Update tomorrow. This blog ended up being a bit of a longer one, so we've included a Table of Contents for you to browse.

Would you like to know more? Read on!

Table of Contents


General Updates

As many players may be aware, Champions with debuff abilities are quite powerful in the current meta because they allow you to double-dip on their debuffs when you use ultimate attacks. Champions' base attacks take into account the debuff in their damage and thus that increased damage determines your BUD. When you use an ultimate attack it uses the BUD value for the damage and then applies the debuff again, allowing debuffs to double dip, something that regular formation buffs do not do. Unfortunately this is something that we feel needs to change, as it means that debuff Champions are simply too powerful compared to their non-debuffing counterparts. The biggest change in this patch is that debuffs will no longer apply to ultimate attacks. They will still apply to base attacks, and so still influence BUD just like normal formation abilities do, but ultimates will no longer double dip. This will not affect the BUD that players can obtain, but will affect the top area that players can grind to as ultimate damage may be drastically reduced. We will continue to monitor the results of this change over the coming days and weeks and take action to offset the lost progress if necessary.

Ultimate Damage Change

Ultimate attacks will no longer have their damage increased by debuffs on enemies. Affected abilities include, but may not be limited to: Minsc's "Go for the Eyes!" (ultimate debuff portion), Gromma's "Spiked Shell", Strix's "Poor Hygiene", Catti-brie's "Mark for Death", Donaar's "Command: Flee", Warden's "Hex", Aila's "Storm Soul/Storm Aura", Spurt's "Wa-speration: Skunky", Krull's "Plague: Pain", Minsc's "Favored Enemies", and Regis' "Ruby Weakness".

Level 'Soft Cap' Increase

New upgrades have been added for all Champions, increasing the soft cap to approximately e62/e63 gold.

Champion Updates

Dungeons & Dragons Deekin Scalesinger

Deekin Scalesinger

Deekin's Story of Doom stacked a little differently from other support Champions so we tweaked how buffs apply to it to bring him more in line with the others. This necessitated a rebalance of all of his Story of Doom upgrades, so he should come out a little ahead of where he used to be with average gear levels. We also expanded his speed-up abilities through a new specialization choice and feat.
  • Buffs to Story of Doom now apply to the post-stack value instead of the pre-stack value.
  • Upgrades for Story of Doom have been rebalanced given the above change.
  • The Epic Tale of Little Kobold specialization now increases the effect of "Story of Doom" by 100%, up from 50%.
  • Added new specialization choice, Boss Wants Speed, which increases the effect of Confidence in the Boss by 100%.
  • Added a new Feat to increase the effect of Confidence in the Boss.

Dungeons & Dragons Gromma Nander

Gromma Nander

No changes to Gromma this go-round as she was already tweaked somewhat recently in the Tanking Healing & Shielding Update and sees decent usage (though we will watch the effects of the ultimate damage change and tweak things accordingly).


Dungeons & Dragons Ishi Snaggletooth

Ishi Snaggletooth

We've shown Ishi a lot of love with boosts to her DPS and gold find. Some of her abilities that used to stack additively now stack multiplicatively, really rewarding you for building a non-human focused formation. We removed her two gold find-related specializations and replaced them with a single ability that boosts her gold find when she gets a killing blow. We've also updated her Friends to X specializations with new races, increasing her synergy possibilities.
  • The Monsters Are People Too! ability now stacks multiplicatively instead of additively and we have increased the base stack size to 100%, up from 25%.
  • Increased the base effect of Let's Find Some Treasure, however this ability continues to stack additively.
  • The specializations Wait for it! and Clear 'em out! have been removed
    • Upgrades for the above specialization have been removed.
  • Added a new ability, Treasure Hunter, which increases the effect of Let's Find Some Treasure for 5 seconds after Ishi gets a killing blow.
  • Added new races to the Friends to X specializations.
  • The Friends to X specializations now stack multiplicatively.
  • The gear in slot 2 which increased Global DPS now increases Ishi's DPS.
  • Ishi's self DPS upgrades have been redistributed.

Dungeons & Dragons Dhadius the Scarlet

Dhadius the Scarlet

Dhadius got both some DPS and Support tweaks. A properly utilized Dhadius should excel at buffing high intellect, magic using Champions, with even his buffs now varying over time based on his trademark Practice Makes Perfect ability.
  • Added a new ability, Together In Magic, which increases the effect of Skill Empowerment on Champions with a magic base attack.
  • The Empowered Orbs specialization now also increases Dhadius' damage by 400%.
  • The Empowered Empowerment specialization now also increases the effect of Skill Empowerment by 50% for each stack of Practice Makes Perfect that is active.
  • The Chromatic Specialist upgrade no longer requires the Empowered Orbs specialization, so Dhadius will now more often cast the same elemental orbs in a row regardless of specialization choice.
  • Dhadius' self DPS upgrades have been rebalanced.

Dungeons & Dragons Krond

Krond

Krond was already a pretty powerful evil damage dealer, thanks to his earlier rebalance when his event re-ran again in year 2 and the addition of more strong or evil Champions over the past year. We've made some small tweaks, but nothing major.
  • Updated the advanced effect display of Survival of the Fittest to reflect that upgrades and equipment apply to the pre-stack multiplier value (a rare occurrence in the current meta).
  • Updated the Cantrip: Shocking Grasp specialization to also stun the affected target for 3 seconds.
  • Reduced the damage multiplier of the individual Cantrip: Fire Bolt fire bolts so that Cantrip: Shocking Grasp may be a superior choice vs. individual enemies.

Dungeons & Dragons Hitch

Hitch

As the least-recently created Champion in the rebalance, Hitch needed quite a bit of love. While his Friendly ability was invaluable in the meta in the past he has fallen out of favor more recently. With that in mind we've completely redone his dagger throwing ability and added some big buffing power there that ramps up in certain situations. Since we want this new Hitch to focus on buffing others, we've removed his DPS tag and reorganized some of his equipment buffs and feats in order to emphasize his support role.
  • Renamed Friendly to Natural Performer.
  • Added a new ability, Ricochet, which gives Hitch's thrown daggers a chance to bounce off of their target and hit another target. Each time they do Hitch increases the effect of the "Natural Performer" ability. This effect can stack with each ricochet and the stacks degrade naturally over time. Due to years of intense practice (and some DM hand-waving), daggers can ricochet off of an enemy and then strike the same enemy again. There are buffs to this ability that increase both its ricochet chance and the bonus it provides.
  • Replaced Hitch's self DPS feats with ones that increase the damage bonus from Ricochet.
  • Added a new Feat that increases the odds of the Ricochet ability proc'ing.
  • Added a new epic Feat that increases the number of daggers thrown.
  • Removed many upgrades that increase the number of daggers thrown.
  • Removed DPS tag.
  • Changed the effect of Hitch's slot 1 and slot 2 equipment (to Buff Ricochet Damage Bonus and Global DPS respectively).

Dungeons & Dragons Birdsong

Birdsong

Birdsong is one of my personal favorite Champions, so I wanted to make sure that we addressed some of her long-standing issues in this update. The main issue she has is that while she's a decent buffer, her Song of Victory stacks are very difficult to consistently keep up, especially if she's not also your main damage dealer. To fix this we've added new specialization choices that add a secondary trigger for Tempo of Victory, each tuned with a certain situation in mind. Now even if Birdsong isn't your primary damage dealer she can keep her song-based-buff going long and loud. We've also given her upgrades some love to make sure she can stand tall as either a primary DPS option or a powerful support Champion.
  • Individual stacks of Tempo of Victory are now multiplicative with each other instead of additive, and buffs to this ability apply to the post-stack multiplier.
  • Added a new set of specializations:
    • The new Soloist specialization increases Birdsong's damage by 400% and increases the base cooldown of Tempo of Victory stacks to 60 seconds.
    • The new Concertino specialization causes Tempo of Victory stacks to also be triggered when any Champion affected by Song of Battle (including Birdsong) gets a kill. Stacks triggered in this way last for at least 10 seconds.
    • The new Crescendo specialization causes Tempo of Victory stacks to also be triggered when any Champion affected by Song of Battle (including Birdsong) attacks a boss enemy. Stacks triggered in this way last for at least 5 seconds.
  • None of these specializations affect the fact that Birdsong getting a kill will continue to trigger a stack of Tempo of Victory that lasts for at least 15 seconds.
  • Added a new feat that buffs Tempo of Victory.
  • Birdsong's slot 2 gear now buffs Tempo of Victory.
  • Birdsong's upgrades have been rebalanced to increase both her buffing ability and her self damage, including new buffs for Song of Battle and global damage.

Dungeons & Dragons Barrowin Undurr

Barrowin Undurr

As one of our earliest "OP" champions, Barrowin's power has waned over time as we've tried one thing or another to fix her. She also suffers from being in the same slot as some powerhouse Champions that see a lot more use than she does. We've decided to double down on the niche that we want Barrowin to fill: the best support in the game for Champions that attack very very slowly. We've completely redesigned her Blessed Hammer ability in a way that directly emphasizes this core design, and given her a number of other small buffs as well.
  • Barrowin's Blessed Hammer ability now statically buffs adjacent Champions based on the differential between her attack speed as theirs, causing Champions with slower attacks to receive a much larger buff.
  • Barrowin's Healing Word ability will now buff Tank Champions in the column in front of her by half its normal amount.
  • Barrowin's Even Temper ability will now trigger whenever any ally that is eligible for Healing Word is attacked (Champions in the same column or Tank Champions in the column ahead of her).
  • Barrowin's ultimate now increases her attack speed by 2 seconds for 15 seconds following its use.
  • Barrowin's base attack speed has been adjusted.
  • Added a new Feat that reduces Barrowin's base attack speed.
  • Rebalanced all buffs to Blessed Hammer.

Dungeons & Dragons Strix Beestinger

Strix Beestinger

We expanded upon Strix's "Haunted" ability in order to increase her buffing ability in certain situations. If your team is having trouble defeating a boss, why not turn all those wipes into a good thing?
  • Strix's Haunted ability will now persist its stacks through area changes, and can add multiple stacks for the same Champion if they are killed multiple times during an adventure.
  • Strix's existing specializations have been completely removed and replaced with three new options.
    • Added Anxious Fireballs specialization which increases Strix's base attack cooldown by 2 seconds and her damage by 300%.
    • Added Echoes of the Past specialization which increases the effect of Haunted by 200%.
    • Added Smelly Lunch specialization which increases the effect of Poor Hygiene by 100%.
  • Updated Strix's upgrades (for Haunted, Poor Hygiene, Global DPS, and Self DPS).

Dungeons & Dragons Azaka Stormfang

Azaka Stormfang

No changes to Azaka at this time. We were hesitant to do too much too quickly; the ultimate changes will be a big adjustment in this update, and we wanted to hold off on changing players' other major farming technique at the same time.


These changes will go live as part of the v1.0 Launch / Spring Extravaganza Update. As always, we look forward to your feedback: let us know in a Community Q&A or feedback post on the Idle Champions Subreddit, on the Steam forums, or on the Official Idle Champions Discord!
March 24th, 2020
Idle Champions Twitch Drops 2.0 
Posted in Idle Champions.

Watch our Idle Champions streams tomorrow, Wednesday 25th March, on Twitch.tv/cnegames to receive in-game rewards as part of our Twitch Drops 2.0 launch! Check out the stream schedule below:
  • 10 AM to 1 PM PT - Official CNE Stream (3 hours)
  • 1 PM to 3 PM PT - Mars' Guiding Hand (2 hours)
  • 3 PM to 5 PM PT - Gaarawarr's Stream (2 hours)
Twitch Drops will be available after 15 minutes for players on Steam after the drops are claimed. Players on web, consoles, iPhones, iPads, and Android devices will still be able to collect their drops but their accounts will be updated in the coming weeks!

Getting Your Twitch Drops

Watch our streams to claim your Twitch Drops. Then unlock the rewards in-game when you link your Idle Champions account to your Twitch account in the Settings menu. If you don’t already have a Twitch account, you can sign up for one here.


Link
Link your Twitch account here!

Rewards include:
  • Gold Chests.
  • Mirt Patron Chest.
  • Vajra Patron Chest.
  • Strahd Patron Chest.
  • Birdsong Barovian Witch Skin.
We hope you like the Extravaganza!
March 23rd, 2020
Dev Blog: Formation Saves Update 
Posted in Idle Champions.

We’re very excited to announce that our Spring Extravaganza brings a much requested quality of life feature - more Formation Saves!

For a while now, we received requests to expand the ability to save formations from our current three save slots to reflect the changes in formations needed over the course of a run, and also allow for more flexibility to try new formation combinations.

That’s why we’ve increased the number of formations you can save from 3 to 50.

Formation Saves FAQ

  • Favorite Formations — The three side buttons remain, but are now ‘Favorite’ slots.
  • More Formation Saves — Creating a new saved formation prompts a new dialog box where you can scroll through all 50 of your formation saves. From here you can load, overwrite, delete or favorite individual saves.
  • Name your Formations — Saving a new formation will prompt you to name it, and you can rename one by tapping the little pencil icon on existing saved formations.
  • Unlock and place — If you load a formation but you do not have all the champions unlocked, as you unlock them the game will attempt to place them in the correct slot (may be blocked by carts or other accompanying obstacles).
  • Familiars — Familiar Saves remain unchanged. When saving a formation, all familiars assigned will be saved in the slot they are assigned to.


Dungeons & Dragons Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms

Feedback

As always, if you have feedback or questions, please do not hesitate to reach out on the Idle Champions Subreddit, Steam forum, or the Idle Champions Discord!
March 20th, 2020
COTLI: New Tier 7 Talents and More! 

Welcome, Crusaders!

We thought that now might be a great time to introduce some additional Talents. Then we thought, "why not introduce Tier 7 Talents?"

Without further ado, here is what you can expect from the New Tier 7 Talents update...

New Tier 7 Talents

These talents require clearing area 2700 to unlock.

3x Passive Tree Talents

  • Legendary Friendship - Increases the DPS of Crusaders for each piece of Legendary gear belonging to Crusaders in the same bench slot, stacking multiplicatively. Max levels: 25
  • Golden Friendship - Increases the DPS of Crusaders for each piece of Golden gear belonging to other Crusaders in the same bench slot, stacking multiplicatively. Max levels: 25
  • Friendly Helpers - Increase the Global DPS for each Taskmaster owned, stacking multiplicatively. Max levels: 50

2 Utility Tree Talents

  • Sprint for the Finish - Increases your maximum level of Sprint. (Must have purchased all levels of the Marathon Sprint Talent to start buying) Max levels: 30.
  • Magical Training - Increases the maximum level of Crusaders by 25 for each level purchased. No maximum level.

Additional Updates

New Tier 1 Talents:

  • Golden Benefits - Increases Global DPS for each Golden item owned. No maximum level.
  • Apprentice Crafter - Increases Global DPS for each Common and Uncommon recipe owned. No maximum level.
  • Level All the Way - Increases Global DPS for each talent level purchased (including levels of this Talent.) Max levels: 50
  • Mission Accomplished - Increases Global DPS for each mission you've completed. No maximum level.

New Tier 4 Talents:

  • Extra Healthy - Increases the health of all Crusaders. Max levels: 50
  • Journeyman Crafter - Increases Global DPS for each Rare recipe owned. No maximum level.

New Tier 5 Talent:

  • Bossing Around - Skip a wave of monsters on a boss area. Max levels: 2

New Tier 6 Talents:

  • Weekend Warrior - Increase the effect of the weekend buffs. Max levels: 25
  • Material Goods - Increase the crafting materials gained from Missions. Max levels: 40
  • Maxed Power! - Increases Global DPS for each Talent that is at max level, stacking multiplicatively. Max levels: 50
  • Master Crafter - Increases Global DPS for each Epic recipe owned. No maximum level

New Objectives

  • Mutiny on the Ghostbeard's Greed campaign - Reach area 1500 with new leadership and increased difficulty. Awards maximum number increase of e200
  • Deadly Tales on the Grimm's Idle Tales campaign - Reach area 1400 with a pesky witch. Awards Crusaders run faster when changing areas.