Good afternoon students! This week's dev blog is a bit more juicy than the last few we've had so lets get right into it! So, after the release of 0.3 and the follow up paches, the team went on a small hiatus. We had a pretty insane crunch over those 9 months and needed some time to prevent burnout. During that time I tried to keep my brain on the game by brainstorming some new ideas for systems, and now that we're back into dev mode I've begun to implement some of them ahead of Verdant so that we may design that content around these changes. First off is combat. 0.3 pretty drastically changed everything about combat and now ManaSoul combat is much more actiony and fast. I felt like something was missing, however, and I believe that is Dodging. In action combat games you almost always have a dodge ability. While most players may think of dodging as a tool for the player, its actually a tool for developers as well. With the inclusion of dodges we can leverage that capability in content, allowing us to make much more interesting and fun gameplay. I didn't just want to add a generic dodge button though, that felt a bit lame and not magical enough for ManaSoul, so instead I hit two birds with one stone and updated our Arcane Spells and added Dodges all in one with some changes listed below.

Core Spells

Offensive Core Spells

• Pierca - You soften your target's armor with a spell, causing that target to take increased Physical Damage
• Veila - You weaken your target's wards with a spell, causing that target to take increased Magical Damage
• Manastia - You surge your Mana from within, granting a bonus to all Schools of Magick but increasing damage taken.
• Ventillo - You cast a spell of luck on yourself, granting you increased chance to Critical Hit
• Chrona - You speed up time for yourself, granting increased Cooldown Reduction

Defensive Core Spells

• Wardia - You erect a magical ward around yourself, reducing Magical Damage taken
• Signio - You bolster your attire making it as hard as steel, reducing Physical Damage taken
• Bolide - You create a barrier on yourself, granting a Shield that blocks damage
• Vampiro - You imbue yourself with a vampiric essence, granting Lifesteal
• Cleansea - You cleanse your surroundings, removing negative debuffs from yourself and nearby allies

Dodge Core Spells

• Blur - You dodge forward a small distance, granting a small window of Invulnerability. Low Cooldown
• Blink - You dodge forward a moderate distance, granting a moderate window of Invulnerability. Medium Cooldown
• Mistwalk - You dodge forward a large distance, granting a large window of Invulnerability. Long Cooldown