New weapon: The Nexal Staff

The Nexal Staff is the first new weapon to be introduced in the Early Access. Picking the Nexal Staff gives your Ember Knight a wizardly look, very distinct from your usual fighter’s garment. Of course, not only does it look different, it calls for a very unique playstyle based on the enhancement of skills.

Single attacks with the Nexal Staff deal small bursts of mid range electrical damage. These are not as powerful as arrows or sword blows, of course, but as you can expect, this is not where the Nexal Staff truly shines.

It wouldn’t be a magic staff if it didn’t grant extra skill damage now would it? So here you have it, 25% more damage on skills. Aditionnally whenever your are prompted to choose between skills you will be offered an extra option to better refine your build. But there is another reason why choosing the Nexal staff may be right for you, and that is… Hold attacks!

Hold attacks zap enemies in a cone in front of you. It deals more damage than single attacks while also replenishing your skills, which makes it a much more desirable attack type than single hits. This comes at a cost however since you won’t be able to move when channeling.

Therefore, finding the right balance between effectiveness and mobility is the key to mastering the Nexal Staff.

Too hard? Too easy? Adjust the difficulty!

Before you start a run, you can now go to the altar located near the tear and tailor the difficulty settings to your own liking. With several options to adjust individually, such as the number of enemies, their attack speed or their damage output, you are now able to set yourself up for an unimaginable challenge, or on the contrary make things a little easier for you (or, you know, “your coop friends”).

If you don’t want to mess with each setting yourself, you can also pick one of the pre-set difficulty levels: default, advanced, hard, expert, insane, and, our personal favourite… Doom! Good luck with that.

Note that in order to access the difficulty modifier, you will first have to defeat the area 3 boss at least once, so you can’t just kill the challenge instantly!

Yes, the purple areas on the ground are still going to be poison, and no, you cannot turn that boss into a kitten. At least not yet.

New relics

Last but not least, the update introduced a number of interesting new relics for you to enjoy.

If you stumble upon the Fiery Imbuement, your weapon attacks will burn your foes after you use your skills!

Because the best offense is sometimes defense, we made the Archangel’s Scythe: whenever you heal, nearby enemies take damage! This should open up some interesting combinations.

With the Withercore relic, your poison effects will last longer, making it the perfect addition to your Poison build alongside the Toxic bangle and the Decayed Scepter.

If you are more into crowd control, you will enjoy the Artic Axe, it deals damage over time to frozen enemies! Very useful when using Frostwall!

We will let you discover all of them in your next playthroughs!