The Tale of the Horseless Headsmans

A most unwelcome visitor is camping Academy grounds, and rumors of a new undead menace have made the rounds. Holiday adventure with tricks and treats, here for a limited time. New bosses, weapons, candy corn! I hope you like to rhyme.

Take note: The special encounters in this event are scaled to your active level, so whether you’re 5 or 15 you should find the monsters appropriately strong and, if you persist through to the end, a weapon that is scaled to your level as well. Finishing the event at Level 15 will reward you with what might be the strongest base weapons in the game outside of one particularly menacing post-game piece of gear.

Wizardmans Class Refresh

The Wizardmans is one of the oldest Dungeonmans classes, with some of the earliest special powers that trace back to 2009. This class was in need of some serious love, and here’s my best effort. Important changes have taken place, please read carefully.

Mana

Mana is used exclusively by Wizardmens now. No other class uses or generates mana.
Mana no longer recovers by default over time.
Bolt of Foom now generates mana when used.
Maximum mana is determined by number of points spent in the Wizardmans mastery.

Wizard Staff

A Wizard Staff is now a melee weapon. The staff attacks creatures adjacent to you and the target, or in all eight tiles around you depending on how many points you put into it. These extra attacks will never target enemies with dangerous status effects, such as damage reflection or counter attacks.

All Wizard Staffs are bound to a given element when dropped. This element determines your melee damage, the type of Bolt of Foom you cast, as well as other spell effects.

Nearly all Wizardmans powers are improved in some capacity if you have a Wizard Staff equipped.

Battlemage (new Passive): You can fight with a staff in one hand and 1H sword in the other.

Lava Lance: Now also sets the ground on fire. Don’t stand in it.

Searing Ray: Equipping a staff allows you to bounce the ray one time.

Foom From The Skies (replaces Foomsplosion): Call down a meteor with elemental damage and effects based on the staff you have equipped. They can hurt you too, so be careful.

Conjure Ice Blocks: Equipping a staff now allows you to conjure a 3×3 section of blocks, potentially trapping a monster inside.

Rhombus of Rime: No longer damages, but instead freeze and debuffs the combat abilities of targets. Staff allows you to cast it at ranger.

Shardstorm (replaces Coldnado): Converts all your mana into shards of frozen foom that then fire, once per round, as Bolt of Foom casts.

Decoymans: Staff increases the duration of the Decoymans from 5 to 8 rounds.

Gift Exchange: Staff use reduces the duration of debuffs applied to the caster by 1 round.

Big Bamf: Staff use pulls all the targets in the splash radius into the tile that was Bamf’d away from.

Stat Potions

Potions of Stremf, Skills, Foom, and Science no longer drop. In their stead are Battle Potions, which give you powerful short term buffs that are more clear and controlled. You still want to pot up before big fights, but you can’t buff Science to sick levels anymore.

Leser Champion’s Potion renamed to Battle Potion: Champion.
Battle Potion: Ancient King added.

Potions of Beastly Battle I, II, III added to increase physical combat prowess.
Potions of Furious Fooming I, II, III added to increase elemental damage.
Armor Potion: Starskin has been added to complement Barkskin and Ironwood potions.

Other Power / Item Changes

* Banners that restore health only do so if the hero is under 50% health.
* There is only Winter has been balanced around hero melee damage. Still scales with science.
* Rapier Wit now creates Strain.
* Electrolyzed now gives +20% mana gains whenever mana is restored.
* Salford’s Solvent should now restore any default enchantments on an item. Test it out some trash legendaries before you try it on that Lord Samuel’s Flame you keep under the mattress.

Enemy Changes

* Ghosts scale a little bit better now, do strictly elemental damage, and have sound effects on hit.
* Lizardmans Brutes now have melee attacks, that’s probably been missing since… ship? Ugh.
* The Brigand Assassin no longer disguises himself as a Bandit Shadow
* Warlord Heralds summon a wider variety of allies to their side.
* Halls of Champions also have a wider variety of possible monsters inside.
* When a creature is killed it will no longer be able to counter attack.
* High level Champions and Ancient Kings have a cap on their dodge values that should allow them to remain hittable.

Combat Balance

* Block and Parry now reduce the proper amount of damage. For reals. Really reals.
* Blocked and Parried attacks show damage in a different color.
* Medium Armor is playable again! Since Parry and Block both result in the character taking some damage, Dodge is now calculated first. This will result in high dodge characters getting hit less.
* Fixed bug in elemental resists math that may have robbed some mid level characters of up to 3% of their resist scores!
* Defensive Staffs are no longer 300% more powerful than intended.
* Powers that generate stamina/mana on hit have been nerfed across the board.
* Souldrinking Scrolls have had their dark and unknowable calculations correctly adjusted.
* You can only counter attack once during enemy flurry attacks. You can still counter multiple enemies in a turn, and the back and forth counter-duels should still work.