Dev Update #4 – Damage Types, Statuses and Uniques

Every blow in Ponor now lands in parts: physical, fire, cold, lightning and poison, each with its own number in its own color. On top of that come the first statuses (poison, bleeding, Slowed, the chill and terror) and nine new unique items built for the classes. This is the update I promised at the end of the last one.

How does damage work in Ponor now?

Until now, an item that said "Adds 3–5 Cold Damage" looked good in the tooltip and did nothing. The monsters already hit in parts, but your hero didn't. Now a blow works like this:

• One roll decides whether the target blocks, and one roll decides a critical strike.
• The physical part is your weapon times the skill's percentage, plus any added physical damage.
• Fire, cold, lightning and poison come from added damage on your gear, and the skill doesn't scale them.
• Each part is raised by your increased damage and its own type's bonus, then cut by the target's resistance to that type alone.

Each part lands as its own hit with its own number: white for physical, orange for fire, ice blue for cold, pale blue-white for lightning, green for poison, and a bigger gold number for a crit.

When the elements started to land, a couple of elemental adds nearly doubled a Hajduk's damage, because I had tuned them while they did nothing. So I cut every added element to 40% of its first numbers. Your weapon is the meal; an element is a side dish, the way it was in Diablo II.

The item vocabulary grew with it. Six new kinds of lines roll on Magic and Rare items: added poison, poison resistance, Life per second, Mana regeneration, Life per kill and thorns, so poison turns up from floor 1 on. Crushing blow, knockback, armor piercing, a bonus to one damage type and maximum resistance up to 85% are kept for uniques.

What statuses are there?

Poison lasts 3 seconds. A new dose adds to what's left and restarts the timer, so a fast weapon loses nothing. A poisoned monster shows small green numbers once a second. Poison Enchanted champions and elites hit half again as poison, and where one dies, it leaves a 3-meter cloud for 4 seconds. Step out of it.

Bleeding follows the same rule over 4 seconds, and its numbers are blood red. If a line says "bleed for 13 damage," the target takes exactly 13. Armor and resistances don't lower it.

The chill now works both ways. Any cold part that lands chills a monster, the same rule that has always applied to you. Slowed is its cousin from items: a percentage off the target's movement and swings for 2 seconds. If both are on a target, the bigger cut counts.

Terror sends a monster fleeing for 2 seconds. It drops its swing, runs to the farthest point it can reach, and cowers if you corner it. The system is built and tested, but no item carries it yet. It belongs to deeper uniques I haven't made.

Guardians shrug off terror and take the chill and Slowed for only half as long. A boss shouldn't be stopped dead.

Each status has its own look on the body: frost and poison tint the monster, and bleeding and terror leave drops and smoke. When you point at a monster, its statuses also show as small icons under its name, in the order they began, each with a shadow that sweeps around it as it runs out.

Which new uniques are there?

Nine new uniques for tier 1, each built around one class's way of fighting:

• Glog, the Dhampir's dagger. Its hits make the target bleed.
• Coffin Nails, the Dhampir's crossbow: knockback and Slowed.
• The Neighbor's Harvest, the Zduhać's gloves: added cold and a slow.
• The Wintering Coat, the Hajduk's body armor. It says "You cannot be slowed," and it means it: no chill, no Slowed. Cold damage still hurts, though.
• Bradva, The Jatak's Door, The Silah, Second Sight and Bura use the new lines: crushing blow, thorns, armor piercing, Life per kill, knockback.

Each one has its own flavor line, like Glog's: "Cut from the hedge by his mother's door, the night his father came home from the grave." A unique only goes into the game once every line it carries actually works. That's why these waited for the statuses.

How do I compare items now?

Hover over an item while you wear something in its slot, and every line ends with the difference: green for better, red for worse, and new for a line your current item doesn't have. Lines you would lose are listed at the bottom in red. You no longer have to switch back and forth to see what a ring really changes. More on reading items is on the equipment page.

What comes next?

The next update is about the guardians at the end of every tenth floor, the dark that hangs in their chambers until they fall, and the first real fight with one of them, the Psoglav. After that come the shrines, and then gems and socketing.

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