Update #39 - Boss Deep Dive & Loot Items
over 2 years ago – Tue, May 10, 2022 at 02:22:49 AM

Hello fellow gamers!

Welcome back to another update. In this update we will take a deep-dive into a new boss from our Water scenario alongside taking a look at some of our loot items. 

If you haven't caught up on our previous deep dives, you can find them all here.

Heroes : Blood Mage | Warlock | War Drummer | Illusionist | Shaman | Cleric | Bard | Shieldmaiden | Druid | Witch Doctor | Berserker | Dragon Knight | Engineer | Musketeer | Runesmith | Alchemist | Warrior | Paladin | 

Bosses : | Forest Troll | Earthsaurus | Armoured Crab | Tectonic Giant | White Widow | 

Loot Items 

As requested by some of our backers, here is a look at our loot items. We decided to only show you the Weapons and Trinkets. If you'd like to see the Head and Chest items, let us know, otherwise we will try not to spoil absolutely everything for your adventures :) 

Water Behemoth 

The formidable, thick-skinned Water Behemoth is the epitome of power. He is a giant water monster whose colossal size is one of his predominant faculties.

Water Behemoth Passive Ability

Mark Of Death : During your Boss upkeep you may place a Mark Of Death token on any enemy of your choice that doesn't already have a Mark Of Death. Enemy units holding this token receive 50% more incoming damage. 

Designer note : We used to have conditions called Retribution and Weak. Retribution was the same as the Mark of Death whereby the enemy received 50% more damage and Weak granted the enemy 50% less damage when attacking. We chose to remove a few conditions from the game as feedback we had was that we already had many status conditions and it could become overwhelming. Instead we left in their opposites which were Protection and Advantage. 

Water Behemoth Boss Abilities

Pre-Battle Cannon Distress : Each hero adds a Cannon card to their ability tab. Enemies must use these cannons to break through your Tough-Skin ability. 

94 HP - Tough Skin : You are immune to all damage, except damage from cannons. 

< 56 HP - Suffering : Your Tough-Skin ability is no longer active. 

< 30 HP - Mark Of Impending Death : The DMG from your Mark Of Death ability increases from 50% to 100%. 

 Support Spells 

Water Control - Reduce all of your cooldown die by a value of 2. With a short cooldown, this effect can be fantastic combined with a flurry of attacks on enemies with a Mark of Death token.

Behemoth Strength - Whilst you have a cooldown die on Behemoth Strength your attack spells also grant a +AGI attack modifier. 

Sea Breeze - Your next attack grants you HP equal to the amount of DMG dealt to enemies that have a Mark of Death.

Submerge -  A very powerful buff spell indeed. Target ally receives +3 STR, INT, DEF, AGI and HP regen for 3 turns. 

Attack Spells

Beckoning Wave - A ranged water elemental type spell that deals 1 damage to all enemies. This spell adds a defence attack modifier and allows you to roll the conditions die twice, looking to add drenched to the spell. 

Hydrosphere - A melee water elemental type attack that targets a single ally. This attack deals 5 DMG, plus an additional 4 un-defendable damage if the target has more than 20 HP. 

Shatter the Seas - A ranged water elemental type spell that deals 5 damage to all enemies and wounds them for 3 turns. Wounded is a condition that reduces HP received by 50%. This attack also allows you to roll the conditions die x2 to add knockback to the spell. 

Cataclysm - A split spell that reduces the AGI value of all enemies by 2 for 3 turns. The second half of this spell deals 4 damage to all enemies, whilst also dealing 4 damage to the cannons. 

Thunder-Stomp - A ranged water and electric elemental type attack that deals 6 damage to all enemies whilst also dealing 6 damage to the cannons. 

Boss Strategy

- When playing as the boss you will want to always be attacking enemies with Mark of Death conditions to take advantage of your 50% additional damage. You will also want to destroy the cannons as quickly as possible. Remembering that Water Therapy is a way to reduce your cooldowns allowing you to maximise damage on those pesky cannons. 

- This battle is all about allocating enough resources to break through the Water Behemoths armour, whilst leaving enough back to protect yourselves from the Mark of Death. If you focus on breaking through the bosses armour too much your party may receive too much damage to make a come back. On the other hand if you focus on protecting yourselves so much, the cannons will never penetrate the bosses armour. 

- Be mindful of using taunt conditions if you have a mark of death condition on you. 

- If the battle is going in your favour your support or healing heroes may continue to use the cannons after breaking though the bosses armour. This un-defendable damage might come in handy if the cannons are haven't been destroyed. 

Solo Mode

At our UK Games expo stand in June we have a demonstration table dedicated to solo mode. Here we will be demonstrating our solo mode to exhibitors. One thing we were asked about during our KS campaign was how much of a table hog the game is, as the boards look quite large. We have since reduced the size of the hexes and hero boards by about 8%. See below a graphic which is 90cm x 90cm that we will be using at the show. This fits everything on we need for solo mode, permitted the scenarios hexes would grow as you explore. But please see that you don't need much more space than 1x1m square to play heroes of the Shire solo mode, so it fits nicely even on smaller gaming tables. We will be streaming and posting during the event so please make sure you're following our social media channels. We may or may not be revealing x2 new heroes with their mini's and their kits that will be coming in next years expansion. 

And that's a wrap for now guys!

We hope you enjoyed seeing some loot items and learning more about our Water Behemoth boss that you'll be able to find in our Water scenario. We will be back soon with another boss deep-dive covering our Great Leviathan (final water boss). Until then, game harder. 

- Heroes of the Shire

Update #38 - General Update & Hero Deep Dive
over 2 years ago – Sat, Apr 30, 2022 at 12:38:17 AM

Hello fellow gamers,

Welcome to another Heroes of the Shire update! In today's update we're taking a deep-dive into our Paladin hero, alongside some general updates and the completion of Damian's top 10 combo's. 

Trash Mob Update

There were 2 cards missing artwork in the last update. Please see below the Terrapin and Alligator have now been added. 

Hero Spell updates

Here are our last few updates regarding spell changes. If you didn't already notice, we started in alphabetical order last update, so here are the P>Z spell updates. 

Paladin - Righteous Shield has been buffed to now remove all buffs and conditions from the Paladin. Whilst this was a very strong ability anyway, these changes have been made to fit the Paladins theme/archetype.

Scholar - Light Storm & Geyser both buffed by +1 damage.

Scholar - Condemnation spell has been buffed. Now increases 2 CD die by a value of 3 and 1 CD die by a value of 2. Old text, one CD die by 3, one by 2, one by 1.

Scholar - Improvement - Instead of falling asleep for 2 turns the Scholar now receives -1 DEF for 2 turns.

Shaman - Elemental Healing has been buffed from 2>3HP gained from casting an attack spell. 

Shaman - Wind Totem and Totem Mayhem abilities have been swapped, allowing heroes to gain access to the Wind Totem earlier on.

Shieldmaiden - Shield Wall. Instead of granting -1 DEF and going first in the round, it now grants +2 DEF and you go last in the round. This change was made to help the Shieldmaiden become a stronger tanking hero. Making her last in the turn order keeps the +2 DEF buff on her for longer.

Shieldmadien - Chaaaarge ability has been removed which increased the DMG output of her Warrior ally. This new spell is called Better Prepared and allows the Shieldmaiden to remove her CD from her strongest spell Ambush after she has cast her Shield Wall spell. 

War Drummer - Defensive Might ability changed. Previously granted +1 DEF at low HP. New ability now grants +2 DEF when taunting (+3 DEF when in scenario mode).

War Drummer - Mercenary card changed to an ally card, making him much harder to defeat. This has been balanced by forcing the War Drummer to have to wait until round 3 to cast his Mercenary spell. 

War Drummer - Disarm spell removed and replaced by Savage Strike which deals 9 DMG + STR modifier to a single target. We also changed the name of Planned Attack to Disarm to make it be more fitting with the spell itself. 

Warlock - Scourge spell has been given the poison elemental type.

Warlock - Demonic Armour cooldown increased from 3>4.

Warlock - Creeping Gloom ability removed. This was a balance issue, as Gloom was already buffed around 1 year ago from -1 debuff of stats to -2 debuffs. With last years buff to Gloom, this Creeping Gloom ability made it even stronger. The new ability that replaces Creeping Gloom is called Excessive Poison. This new ability allows the poison from the Warlocks scourge spell to be stackable. Meaning if an enemy already has poison, a second condition would be placed on target enemy instead of resetting the existing condition. Poison temporarily reduces an enemies agility value by 1, so stacking x2 poison will reduce this by 2 which is similar to the old Creeping Gloom that this ability is replacing. There's method in the madness :) 

Warlock - Deathcoil buffed. Instead of granting 8 HP if target enemy dies, the spell now reads you gain 100% of the DMG dealt as HP. Bare in mind this spell has pierce, so it's always going to grant 7 DMG and 7 HP without buffs. 

Warlock Demon Form - Hero ability would usually deal 2 DMG to all enemies during the demon's hero upkeep. This has now been changed to happen during the demon's end step. Meaning that the turn the Warlock transforms into the demon and then goes to end step, this ability triggers. 

Witch Doctor - Toxic Strength reworded to say 'You may cast an attack spell now' instead of being able to cast any type of spell. 

Witch Doctor - Toxin Spray used to grant poison. This instead now grants wounded, a condition that reduces the amount of HP an enemy can receive by 50%. This was changed due to the Witch Doctor already having lots of ways to poison an enemy. 

Bard - Power Of Music ability changed. The Bard had her instrumental aid changed recently to fit her thematics better, so that her buffs only last whilst she is playing the instrument. In order to achieve this we had to increase the effectiveness of her buffs as they couldn't be used as frequently. This buff made the Power Of Music ability too strong. Her new ability now allows her to play all of her instruments at the same time after casting Musical Intervention, which would usually only allow a second instrument. This is still a very strong ability which fits the character of a Musician. 

Spell Name Changes

Shieldmaiden | Battle Hunger > Shield Wall

Shieldmaiden | Summon Help > Reinforcement 

War Drummer | Planned Attack > Disarm 

Hero Deep-Dive

Today's deep dive will cover our Paladin hero. This hero has a special place in our heart as it was our very first hero created, well over 2 years ago now. This hero has had many versions, alterations and changes, so we'll share a few with you below. If you enjoy our deep-dives and want to catch up on any of the other heroes or bosses, please see the links below to their updates : 

Heroes : Blood Mage | Warlock | War Drummer | Illusionist | Shaman | Cleric | Bard | Shieldmaiden | Druid | Witch Doctor | Berserker | Dragon Knight | Engineer | Musketeer | Runesmith | Alchemist | Warrior |

Bosses : | Forest Troll | Armoured Crab | Tectonic Giant | White Widow |

Paladin

The Paladin is a Holy Warrior whose protection is not limited to his sword and shield when charging into battle. His religious fervour is deeply embedded in his belief that his divine light will enable him to conquer all.

Paladin Hero Abilities

Divine Aura - All allies including yourself gain a permanent +4 base HP. 

Refraction - All allies including yourself gain a permanent +1 Light Damage.

Support Spells

Second Embrace - Heal a single ally for 4 HP plus an INT modifier.  

Imprison - Paralyze and stun a single enemy for 2 turns. 

Purify The Sick - All allies receive 2 HP and remove all negative buffs and conditions. 

War Banner - You gain +1 defence for 3 turns and then reduce all of your cooldowns by a value of 2. This includes the CD of War Banner itself. 

Light Screen - All allies receive protection for 3 turns. Protection is a condition that reduces incoming DMG by 50%.  

Attack Spells

Lead By Example - A melee attack that deals 3 DMG to a single enemy target. 

Dispel Evil - A melee, light elemental type spell that deals 0 DMG with an +INT modifier. This spell however has pierce which is un-defendable DMG, plus it's a light elemental type spell that gets boosted by the Paladins Refraction hero ability. 

Divine Light - A ranged, light elemental type spell that targets all enemies, dealing 3 DMG to them plus granting you 2 HP. 

Smite - A ranged, AOE light elemental type spell that deals 2 DMG plus heals all allies for 100% of the damage dealt. Damage dealt is after defence, for example you attack a Warrior for 8 DMG and he defends 5 of that, you gain 3 HP from the DMG dealt. This spell is very powerful vs heroes that have pets. Our Hunter hero deep dive will be coming up next :) 

Wrath From Above - The Paladins most powerful direct damage spell. A ranged attack that deals 5 DMG to a single enemy with both +INT and +STR modifiers. 

Paladin Spell Mastery

The Paladin has 3 paths to follow, each offering a completely different play style depending on what your group requires. See Divinity down the left,  Reinforcements in the middle and Renewal on the right. These different paths give the Paladin lots of flexibility in his approach to how he is played.

 Divinity 

This path leads the Paladin down the path of light. Granting the Paladin x2 new light damage spells and another way to buff his light damage. Light Wave is a powerful spell that places glowing on all of your enemies. Glowing is a condition that deals 2 un-defendable damage when an enemy gains HP, (the enemy is you). Beacon Of Light now only deals AOE light damage but it also buffs the agility of all allies, which comes in very handy for re-arranging the turn order. Your Wrath From Above spell gets even better when you unlock Wrath King. An ability that grants you damage immunity for 1 turn after casting Wrath From Above. 

Reinforcements

Not interested in becoming a light mage? Melee DPS to the rescue! Steel Contact increases all of your melee attacks. Overwhelm is a fantastic buff that grants +2 all stats plus HP regen for 3 turns. You can unlock perpetual damage which is a strong attack that strikes a second time, even more so powerful after being overwhelmed. Stunning Clash is the longest stun spell in the game, stunning your enemy for 3 turns can be detrimental to an enemies strategy. 

Renewal 

No Paladin would be complete without the ability to heal. Unlock a new heal called Radiant Heal, that's a slight upgrade to your Second Embrace spell. But now with 2 strong healing spells at your side you have more consistency. Unlocking a Celestial Shield can prove extremely useful. Who needs to heal when you can grant huge shields by unlocking your new Celestial Shield spell. Your own HP will constantly be replenished each turn in this path, alongside having access to one of the most powerful abilities in the game, Righteous Shield. This ability removes all buffs and conditions from the Paladin and makes him immune to damage for 1 turn. This shield maybe activated at any time during battle. If this shield is popped in response to an enemies attack, their attack is still lost. 

And that's it for our Paladin hero, he's a jack of all trades similar to the Druid, Shaman and Runesmith. He pairs up very nicely with the Cleric or Scholar helping improve their damage output with his Refraction ability. 

Damian's Top 10 Favourite Damage Dealing Combo's

Continuing on with our Top 10 favourite combo's, please see our countdown from 5 > 1 below.

Number 5. Musketeer / Huntress - Gunpowder Blast!

This combo utilises the Musketeers Gun Power spell to its full potential. Turn 1 the Huntress casts Inner Beast on herself granting +3 STR, while the Musketeer casts Gun Powder. Turn 2 the Huntress casts Marksmenship into Double Shot dealing 11 DMG to all enemies. With an average defence of 5, this hits for 6 DMG plus 50% from Marksmenship, taking it to 9 DMG. This attack strikes again dealing another 9 DMG to all enemies after defence, then granting them all knockback, which deals another 4 DMG. On the Musketeers turn 2 she casts Front Line granting the Huntress +2 STR. Turn 3 there is a CD value of 1 left on Gunpowder still, allowing the Huntress to cast Piercing shot which deals 2 DMG plus STR, which is now increased by +5. Taking the piercing shot to a grand total of 13 DMG to all enemies which is un-defendable damage. Before the Musketeer has even had her turn 3, a total of 31 DMG has been dealt after defence. An array of firepower from our female heroes to say the least :) 

Number 4. Scholar / Berserker - Fancy Manoeuvre 

This combo strips away your enemies defence value leaving them vulnerable. Turn 1, the Berserker casts Furious to grant himself Advantage for 2 turns. Turn 1 the Scholar casts Incognito with the Incognito Studies ability activated granting the Berserker +3 STR and the Scholar +3 INT for 3 turns. Turn 2 for the Berserker sees him casting Hostile Manoeuvre which grants X damage, for this example, let's go with X being 3. This is followed up with an Exhaust Armour spell that grants an enemy -2 DEF for 2 turns and then a strike for 3 DMG. At this point the Berserker has an additional 6 DMG assuming he hasn't taken any damage turn 1. This 6 DMG plus the Berserkers 6 STR = 12 DMG, plus the 3 DMG from the Exhaust Armour spell, totals this up to 15 DMG. This damage also has advantage and our enemy has -2 DEF. Using 5 as our average DEF value this is an incoming 15 DMG - 3 defence, of 12 DMG. 50% of 12 is 6, taking this spell to 18 DMG. Scholar turn 2 casts Improvement, which removes the cooldown die from Exhaust Armour. Turn 3 the Berserker opens up with another Exhaust Armour which grants target enemy yet another -2 DEF leaving them with 1 DEF. The attack will deal 12 DMG, which is 11 DMG after defence. Only to be followed up by a Holy Flame from the Scholar with deals 16 DMG, 15 DMG after defence. A grand total of 44 DMG to a single target by the end of round 3. 

Number 3. Dragon Knight / Scholar - Pyroblast Chain 

This combo is all about Spamming Pyroblast each turn. With a solid amount of damage and a stun effect, your enemies will soon feel the heat of battle. The Scholar is required to be a Pyromancer. Turn 1 the Dragon Knight casts Knight's Pledge, granting all allies 50% more DMG on their next attack. The Scholar waits for nobody and immediately opens up with...you guessed it, Pyroblast. This deals 13 DMG. Using our average defence value of 5, this attack will hit an enemy for 8 DMG. 50% of 8 = 4. So a total of 12 DMG plus stun. Turn 2 the Dragon Knight casts Ignite Armour followed by Light 'Em Up, placing a burn condition on all allies. Turn 2 for the Scholar, as they hold a burn condition the CD die on their Pyroblast is reset, allowing them to recast Pyroblast dealing another 8 DMG after defence plus stun. This fast paced duo have already dealt 21 DMG after defence by round 2, where other combo's are still getting started. This can be a continuous loop for the Scholar as long as the Dragon Knight recasts Ignite Armour and Light 'Em Up every 3 turns. When it gets to round 5 the Scholar can gain additional damage from Volcanic Ritual (final spell in the fire book, page 2). A super fun combo that's relatively easy to setup. Failing that, this duo still have lots of synergies together stacking burn effects. 

Number 2. Shaman / Engineer - Electrical Storm 

The Shaman has better, more consistent combo's but this is one I always love to try! It requires quite a few steps to setup which is why it's easy to disrupt, but my gosh, is it rewarding if your enemies don't see it coming :) This combo requires the Engineer to be a Tinkerer. Turn 1 the Shaman summons her Fire & Ice totems and casts Combustion granting herself +3 INT for 3 turns. The Engineer creates a Lighthouse Turret and throws up a Static Shield granting a shield but most importantly +2 electricity damage for 3 turns to the Shaman. Turn 2 the Shaman casts Focused Attack which will be granting the Shaman an additional 3 DMG when she attacks. Turn 2 the Engineer upgrades the Lighthouse Turret to level 1 and casts casts hard work upgrading it again to level 2, followed by Boost which makes the Engineer go first next round. Turn 3 the Engineer starts us off by upgrading the Lighthouse Turret to level 3 and then activating Illuminate to grant the Shaman advantage. Spell for turn the Engineer casts Lightning Orb to reduce an enemies defence value by -1. Turn 3 for the Shaman and this is where the fun starts. She gets out her Electricity and Water totems, granting her an additional +2 INT totem bonus. The Shaman then casts Bolt Connection, which deals 0 DMG + 6 base INT, +2 INT from the totem bonus, 2 electric DMG plus 3 STR from focused attack, taking us to a total of 13 DMG. Deducting the enemies defence value of 4, leaves us with 9 DMG + 50% from advantage which takes us up to 14 DMG. This spell is then followed by a Lightning Bolt in the same turn which deals 4 DMG plus paralyses an enemy. This totals to 17 DMG, which is 14 DMG after defence and 21 DMG after advantage. This one spell Bolt Connector deals a total of 35 DMG after defence. 

Number 1. Warrior / Bard - Echo of the Winds 

We're down to my number 1 favourite combo and it's a big one, so buckle up. Instant death is on the horizon! Turn 1 the Warrior goes first, choosing support stance and casts All Eyes On Me. The Bard plays her Drum instrument with her hero ability granting the Warrior +2 STR for 3 turns, which in turn becomes +4 STR due to All Eyes On Me. The Bard casts her CD: 0 spell Cheer for turn, granting +1 STR, INT, DEF, AGI which becomes +3 for the Warrior. Leaving the Warrior with +7 STR for 2 turns and +4 STR for 3 turns. Turn 2 the Warrior jumps into brawl stance and casts Bloodlust, granting +2 STR & INT,  this is a +4 instead so the Warrior is now at +11 STR. Bard turn 2 casts Angry Voice, increasing all the negative buff durations of the enemy, but most importantly increasing our positive buff durations by +2 turns, taking all our buffs back to 3 turns. Turn 3 the Warrior stays in Brawl stance and casts Windfury which deals 1 DMG plus strikes 3 times. At this point the Warrior has +11 STR from buffs, there is a +3 permanent STR buff from being in Brawl stance plus a base value of 5 STR. So a total of 19 DMG. With an average defence value of 5, this strikes for 14 DMG x3, which is 42 DMG. And we're only halfway through with our fun. Turn 3 the Bard casts Echo, which allows an ally to repeat their previous spell cast, of which we'll target the Warrior and cast Windfury for a second time this turn. Total of 84 DMG in one turn. 

And there we have it, my favourite top 10 combo's! I hope it's inspired some of you to do some theory crafting of your own in preparation for the arrival of your Heroes of the Shire game. Understanding not only your own hero board but that of your enemies, will prove essential for those who wish to prove themselves in our tournaments. 

And that's a wrap for this update!

Thank you for joining us on another update. We're full steam ahead now trying to get the last few bits and pieces finished off. We'll be back again with another deep-dive soon. We've been asked to cover some loot items in a deep-dive so we'll be sure to include those next time round, alongside some more boss deep-dives. Until then, have a great weekend and happy gaming. 

- Heroes of the Shire

Update #37 - General Update | Enemy Monster Reveal | Favourite Combo's
over 2 years ago – Sat, Apr 09, 2022 at 03:06:06 AM

Hey all,

Welcome to another Heroes of the Shire update! In today's update we're showcasing all of our enemy monsters aka trash mobs, alongside some general updates and Damian's top 10 combo's! 

Trash Mobs

You'll bump into trash mobs when exploring regions of the Shire. We offer 4 themed scenarios, all of which are included in the Collectors edition. Our Fire & Ice edition contains the Fire & Ice scenarios only, whilst the Earth & Water edition contains the Earth & Water scenarios only.  Trash mobs are found on adventure cards, action cards and sometimes summoned by bosses in combat. There are 16 trash mobs in each scenario. Of these 16 mobs, 4 are elite and 12 are non-elite. Elites are typically harder to defeat, drop more loot and have better stats. When a group of monsters are summoned you deal X cards from the trash mob deck at random to battle, unless an action card specifies exactly which monsters are summoned.  Let's start with the additional 4 trash mobs that were unlocked via stretch goals during the KS campaign. We've spiced things up with these mobs by removing one of their spells and giving them a strong and unique ability. 

4 New Stretch Goal Mobs

Goblin Shaman | Tranquillity - When an ally casts a spell you may assist them by casting Aveksha. This ability only triggers once per turn.

Water Monkey | Evolution - Your Monkey Fist spell deals an additional X DMG where X is 5 minus the number of your allies in battle. Upon death your allies gain HP equal to X times 2. 

Burning Raptor | Raptor Energy - Instead of HP you have raptor energy. You start with x8 raptor energy and you lose 1 energy anytime you receive DMG from an enemy spell. 

Ice Serpent | Frost Bite - When you reach 1 HP or lower you don't die. Instead you immediately take a bonus turn. During this bonus turn you deal 100% more DMG. Upon death all allies gain 6 HP.  

Regular Frame & Elite

After some discussion with the community we have decided to make our regular framed mobs have a bronze frame, with our elite monsters having the golden frame. 25% of the trash mob deck contains elite monsters, which have slightly better stats and drop double the loot items. See below the new bronze frame for the regular mobs :

Ice Scenario Mobs

Fire Scenario Mobs

Earth Scenario Mobs 

Water Scenario Mobs

General Game Updates 

We've made lots of minor changes over the last few weeks, see a small summary of some below. 

General UI updates :

- All spells have been rearranged on their hero boards and placed in order of cooldown value from left to right. Left side being the lowest CD, right side having the highest CD.

- Stats on each hero board have been abbreviated from Strength to STR, Intellect to INT, Agility to AGI, Defence to DEF and Health to HP. This helps keep the boards uniform as the buffs and attack modifications were already using the abbreviations. 

- We have made several UI changes to contrast, making text stand out better on certain boards vs darker background colours. Same for some conditions like shadow elemental type and lacerate. 

Hero Spell updates 

Runesmith - All of the runes on his Runic Path hero ability have been buffed. Protection now grants 3 HP shield instead of 2 HP. Strength rune now grants +2 buff of target allies choice instead of +1 and his Elemental rune has been increased to grant him +3 frost DMG instead of +2. 

Blood Mage - Given a second hero ability called Disallow. This ability allows the Blood Mage to cast CD:4 spells when hexed. This is a balance issue as lots of the Blood Mage spells are CD:4 or above, making hex affect this hero more than most. 

Blood Mage - Forward thinking ability removed. New ability called Improved Demon. This increases the Blood Demon's pet DMG by +1. 

Blood Mage - Shadow Blood bottom ability removed. New ability called Blood Sacrifice. Shadow elemental type spells deal an additional 1 DMG. This increases to +2 if you have sacrificed a Blood Demon this battle. 

Huntress - Flare has been buffed. The effects come into play at the end of round 3 now, instead of round 4.

Huntress - Defensive Parry has been changed to allow her to cast the spell when an enemy attacks her. 

Illusionist - Ice Sculptor now allows you to reduce the CD of Phantasmal Image as well as Ice Block.

Illusionist - Shattering Blast stuns for 3 turns instead of 2.

Cleric - Glorious Health ability changed. New ability allows the Cleric to turn excess HP for her and her allies into damage directed at a single target. 

Cleric - Piercing Immunity now also stops penetrate as well as pierce effects working on her.

Druid - Shapeshifters Bond. The druid now gains HP when shapeshifting instead of staying put.

Bard - Her CD:0 spell Travellers Fate has been changed. It used to read, you can ignore the effects of taunt. It now reads, this damage can’t be prevented.

Paladin - Beacon of Light buffed by +1 DMG. 

Paladin - Overwhelm buffed. +2 STR and +2 DEF increased from +1.

Spell Name Changes

Assassin | Equip All > Poison Mix.

Cleric | Kind Heal > Quick Heal

Cleric | Group Heal > Mass Prayer

Cleric | Loosing Faith > Divine Blessing

Dragon Knight | Flame Blast > Hellfire Wave

Druid | Group Immunity > Barkskin

Scholar | Damage Immunity > Expedient

Engineer | Electricity Field > Static Innovation

Huntress | Hunter’s Strike > Arrow Blade

Musketeer | Slow Reload > Progressive Reload

Illusionist | Illusion Blast > Mirage Blast

Paladin | Almighty Strike > Divine Strike

Battle Pack & True Solo Mode

Here's a quick first look at the final designs for the Battle Pack and the True Solo Mode. No fancy renders for now, these are just some photos of paper ones I printed out and folded up a few weeks back. The battle pack cards will be wrapped in foil, similar to booster packs from TCG's. The True Solo Mode addon will come in small box. 

Damian's Top 10 Damage Dealing Combo's 

With a huge variety of hero choice, spell choice and customisation of heroes, the potential for theory crafting is endless. We've had many people getting excited over on our Discord, telling us some combo's they've found. Whilst these are by no means the best combo's, they are ones that we really enjoy pulling off every once in a while. On paper these combo's will seem OP, but in reality most of them are very hard to pull off as in the below examples our opponents are not reacting to our board state.  I will break down my top 10 combo's over 2 posts, with 5 here below and my favourite 5 in the next update. 

Number 10. Blood Mage / Illusionist - Mirage Ritual Combo

This combo relies on the Blood Mage sacrificing the Illusionist, which triggers Darkness. This allows the Illusionist to come back in his Illusive form, which is significantly stronger than his human form. The sacrifice will trigger both Darkness from the Dark Soul, and the Mirage Blast from the Illusionist. This will setup the Blood Mage with high INT to deal a devastating attack turn 3, alongside having the Illusionist in his powerful form. Not only that, having sacrificed the Illusionist early in the game, the Blood Mage can later revive him back in his Illusive form by recasting Dark Ritual. 

Number 9. Musketeer / Blood Mage - Bleed 'Em Out Combo

This combo is all about stacking as many bleed conditions as possible in a short space of time. Using the Blood Mage's Blood Offering ability and his Blood Demon, alongside the Musketeer following the Fencing path. Here we have placed 7 bleed conditions on a single enemy by round 2. With the Blood Mages Blood Transfusion ability active, that's 21 HP over 3 turns he will gain, making him almost invincible. 

Number 8. Shaman / Cleric - Flashy Combo

This combo requires both the Shaman and Cleric to buff the Clerics INT value as high as possible, whilst stripping the enemies defence value to send 1 enemy to an early grave. With a totem bonus of -1 DEF and a Shimmering Aura bonus of -1 DEF, all enemies will have -2 DEF. The total INT gained from Combustion, Blizzard and Bestow Wisdom is +8. The Cleric has a default INT value of 6, adding on top the +8 that takes us to a total of 14 INT. If our enemy has an average DEF of 5, that would now be 3, due to the -2 DEF.  Flash deals 2 DMG + 14 INT + 1 damage from Light Intelligence ability which = 17 DMG - 3 DEF equals 14 DMG. With 100% more that's a whopping 28 DMG after defence. 

Number 7. Runesmith / Assassin - Deadly Dart Combo

This combo relies on both the Runesmith and the Assassin working towards a deadly Poison Dart spell. The Assassin places poison on himself which triggers his Sickness & Health, turn 2 casting vanish to grant him 50% more DMG. Whilst the Runesmith follows the Strength Rune he can grant +2 STR each time he casts a Rune spell. Turn one the Runesmith casts Rune of Strength granting +3 STR, +2 STR from the hero ability and +1 STR from cover me. Unfortunately the +2 and +1 will be lost by the time the Poison Dart is cast however the +3 will still be active. Turn 2 for the Runesmith he casts Rune of Protection which is another support spell triggering Cover Me and his hero ability reapplying the +1 STR & +2 STR. This grants the Assassin a total of 6 STR from the Runesmith. Meanwhile the Assassin has 7 base STR, plus 2 from triggering Sickness & Health. Which brings him up to a total of 15 STR, plus any extra if he gets lucky with his Poison Coating ability. If we have an average defence value of 5, after casting Poison Dart which deals 2 DMG + 15 STR which is 17 DMG, -5 DEF leaves us with 12. + 50% more from advantage taking it to 18 DMG, plus 50% more DMG from the target being poisoned taking the grand total to 27 DMG from a single hit. 

Number 6. Warrior / War Drummer - WWE Combo

This combo is all about creating a huge body slam. Turn 1 the Warrior jumps into support stance and casts All Eyes On Me. Granting him an additional +2 on any positive temporary buffs received. The War Drummer turn 1 beats his drums for 3 turns, granting the Warrior +4 DEF, then casts Reinforce Defence granting him another +4 DEF. Turn 2 the Warrior casts Battle Cry granting himself +3 STR & DEF. The War Drummer turn 2 beats his drums again for another 3 turns, granting yet another +4 DEF to the warrior, into Sustain Warfare to beat his drums one last time for another +4 DEF. The Warrior is naturally at 7 DEF in Defence stance. He has been granted an additional 19 DEF on top of the 7 of his own. That's 26 DEF + an STR of 8 which grants Body Slam 32 DMG. If we have an average defence value of 5 that's 27 DMG after defence.

And there we have it, the top 10 countdown has started. That leaves my favourite 5 coming in the next update. Hopefully you've been inspired to find your own broken combo's. Note all of these combo's can be easily stopped with conditions like Paralyze, Hex, Confused, Protection, plus many other ways that heroes have of evading enemy spell damage. We'll cover some damage prevention tactics in a future update, for those of you that enjoy crowd control with a late game win. The above is a quick insight to the theory crafting I've personally come up with after play testing all these heroes over the last 2 years. 

Hero Reference Sheets

We're almost done with our reference sheets which were asked for during the KS campaign. We've got the last 4 hero sheets to finish. We're still happy to share our first draft with you. If you'd like to checkout 13 hero reference sheets please please click the reference sheet below and be taken to a link to a google drive. Note the reference sheets, nor anything else in the game for that matter has had any form of final proof reading yet. So any spelling or gramma errors you encounter feel free to pass onto us and we'll make the corrections accordingly. You can effectively help speed up the process. 

Final 48hrs to edit your orders

Earlier today we gave the pledge manager software the go ahead to lock in orders and charge cards. Please note that you have around 36hrs from the time of this email to finalise your order. Any questions don't hesitate to reach out to us and we'll do our best to assist you in anyway we can.

And that's a wrap for this update

Thank you for joining us on another update. We're full steam ahead now trying to get the last few bits and pieces finished off. We'll be back again with another deep-dive soon. Until then, have a great weekend and stay safe. 

- Heroes of the Shire

Update #36 - General Update & Hero Deep Dive
over 2 years ago – Sun, Apr 03, 2022 at 10:09:29 PM

Hello all,

We hope you've had a great start to 2022. It's been a very exciting one for us here at Senior Games. We are nearing the end of the production stages with Heroes of the Shire. We have received some sample renders of 3D minis that we will be releasing next year in an expansion (renders at the bottom of this update). We've also booked our first exhibition/convention, which is the UK Games Expo that runs from Friday 3rd - Sunday 5th June 2022. We'll be there on stand 2-581 if anyone would like to come have a chat, see a demo or play our prototype. We have a few fun things planned for the event, like a world boss that will take the entire weekend to defeat. We would love to get our backers in on the action too, so we'll update our Tabletopia version of the game closer the convention time to include the world boss, with rules on how it will all work. Please note that we will be taking pre-orders during the convention, but rest assured that nobody will get a better price for the game than you guys. Without you guys we wouldn't have even made it to the convention, so this loyalty to our backers will be honoured. Moving on, in a more negative light, we are running a little behind on the game production. We're estimating around a 12 week delay, so we would like to apologise for that. We'd rather not rush the game, but spend that extra time getting the game right before we give it the go ahead for mass production. That's a super quick summary of how our first quarter has been going.

Pledge Manager Charging Cards

We will be locking in pledge manager orders and charging all cards on April 8th. We're around 76% of all pledge manager surveys completed now, so thank you to everyone for completing theirs. We will be locking in orders and billing cards more frequently for the remaining few backers who complete their surveys after April 8th. You will still be able to complete your survey after April 8th don't worry, but we urge you to complete it as soon as you can.

Hero Deep-Dive

We're back today with another hero deep dive, this time covering our Warrior hero. A classic RPG character type that's always a fan favourite. If you haven't caught up on all our other deep-dives please see the links below. 

Heroes : Blood Mage | Warlock | War Drummer | Illusionist | Shaman | Cleric | Bard | Shieldmaiden | Druid | Witch Doctor | Berserker | Dragon Knight | Engineer | Musketeer | Runesmith | Alchemist 

Bosses : | Forest Troll | Armoured Crab | Tectonic Giant | White Widow | 

Warrior

It is not just the formidable stature of the Warrior that his opponents find unnerving, but his ability to adjust his stances to the situation, keeping him primed to deliver unrelenting physical damage.

Warrior Hero Ability

Change Stance: During your first Hero upkeep you must choose a stance to be in, choosing from Defence stance, Support stance or Brawl stance. When you've chosen your stance, you will place the card on your ability tab which shows all players at the table which stance you are in. Each stance offers semi-permanent buffs, meaning they are only permanent whilst you are in that stance. Should you leave that stance you will also loose the buffs associated with it and gain new ones for jumping into a new stance. See below details on each stance. The Warrior can only cast spells from the chosen stance he is currently in. For example if the Warrior chooses Brawl stance, he can only casts the x2 spells on his brawl stance card, and the x2 spells on his hero board under the Brawl stance column called Windfury and Charge. During each of his hero upkeeps the Warrior may choose to stay in that existing stance or change to another one. 

Defence Stance

Support Stance

 Brawl Stance 

Defensive Stance Spells 

Body Slam - A powerful melee attack that deals 0 DMG to a single enemy, but adds a strength and defence attack modifier. Note: spells that have more than 1 attack modifier are easier to buff/combo/abuse. 

Intervention - You may cast this spell on an enemies turn before damage is dealt. Single target ally receives protection for 1 turn. This is a very strong effect to reduce incoming damage to either yourself or an ally. Remember cooldown die immediately lower on your upkeep so that 4 immediately becomes a 3. 

Axe Throw - A ranged attack that deals 3 damage to a single target. Not a particulary powerful attack spell, but useful in situations when you become disarmed or for when you're saving your more powerful attacks for a later stage in combat. 

Hold The Line - All allies gain +3 defence for 3 turns. Remember the Warrior also gains +1 defence when in defensive stance. Thus giving the Warrior a mighty 10 defence after casting hold the line, permitted he has no de-buffs. 

Tip : With a defence value of 10 this becomes very tough to penetrate, which is where effects like burn, bleed, poison, glowing, darkness, drenched, pierce, penetrate and knockback come in handy. All of these effects/conditions become vital as a high defence value makes no difference against un-defendable damage.

Support Stance Spells 

Battle Cry - All allies gain +1 strength, defence, agility and defence for 3 turns. 

Commanding Shout - Target ally receives taunt for 3 turns.

Bleed It Out - A melee attack that deals 3 damage plus bleed to a single enemy. 

All Eyes On Me - Whilst there is a cooldown die on All Eyes On Me, all positive temporary buffs you receive are increased by a value of 2. Pair this with Battle Cry to improve its effectiveness. 

Brawl Stance Spells

Windfury - A melee attack that deals 1 damage to a single target. This attack strikes 3 times making it immensely powerful. Note the difference between a split spell and a spell that strikes multiple times is that you can't change your target with each strike. Making them slightly different when it comes to strategy. 

Charge - A melee attack that deals 5 damage plus knockback to a single enemy. 

Warrior Spell Mastery

The Warrior has 3 paths to follow, each offering a different play style depending on what your group requires. See Stance Manipulation down the left,  Ancient Warfare in the middle and Armoured Defence on the right. These different paths give the Warrior lots of flexibility in his approach to how he is played. 

 Stance Manipulation

This path is the jack of all trades, offering 1 new spell for each stance. The true reason for following this path is that final ability called Rapid Response. This is a very strong ability allowing the Warrior to change stance when he becomes the target of an attack. This grants him the freedom to enter Brawl or Support stance during combat and not have to worry about the consequences. Paired with your Keep Moving ability, you have a small amount of self healing too requiring less demand from your allies. A very popular path for 1v1 combat where the other paths might struggle. 

Ancient Warfare. 

The Warrior's DPS path, taking him from moderate damage to high damage. With 3 new Brawl Stance spells the Warrior now has more reason to stay in that stance. Unlocking a new ranged spell called Spear Throw which grants you a semi-permanent +1 strength. This semi permanent buff lasts all battle so you'll want to cast it early on. Inspired by Blizzard's Warcraft 3 game, Bloodlust is a new unlockable ability in this path that deals 2 damage to all enemies whilst pumping up the damage output of your allies for 2 turns. Leaving yourself in Brawl stance makes you vulnerable to attack from enemies by weakening your defence so whilst this path is almost Berserker like with high risk to reward ratio, it can be detrimental to your survivability. Bring a healer or tank along for the ride and this path is set to be a super fun one. 

Armoured Defence

For our tanks out there, this path is for you. Big Measures is an ability that grants the Warrior and additional +10 base HP when in defence stance. Recall above that the Warrior when entering defence stance already gains +5 base HP so that's now a total of +15 base HP, making his enemies envious of his health pool. Your damage in this path isn't as strong as some of the others so we've implemented Weaken Armour, a spell that allows you to strip defence away from your enemies. Retaliation is a fantastic ability that grants you a counterattack condition for 3 turns and improves the quality of your counterattack spell Axe Throw. 

And that's a wrap for now guys!

We will be back soon with more general updates and deep-dives. We'll cover our Acidic Hydra boss next alongside some monsters (trash mobs) from our earth scenario.  We've had around 76% of all our backers complete their pledge manager surveys, so thank you to everyone that has completed theirs. If anybody has any issues or questions, please don't hesitate to reach out and we will do our best to assist you. Until we meet again in another update, have a great weekend and we look forward to sharing more about Heroes of the Shire with you.

- Heroes of the Shire

Update #35 - General Update & Hero Deep Dive
over 2 years ago – Thu, Mar 10, 2022 at 01:58:54 PM

Hey folks! 

Before we jump into today's deep-dive we've got a few updates to share with you. 

Spell Updates

We are now in our final stages of hero balancing. For those that are not aware, we've been balancing our heroes for almost 2 years now. For a board game like ours that have lots of Video & MOBA inspiration, the hero balancing is vital. Which is why we've spent so much time working and reworking our heroes. Please see a few minor changes below to give you an example of what we've been up to. 

Dragon Knight - Burning Desire spell has now been given a fire elemental type symbol, which will increase its damage output potential.

Assassin - Disfigure spell now grants -1 STR to an enemy alongside -1 DEF.

Blood Mage - Internal Bleeding buffed to a CD:4 lasting 1 extra turn. Whilst Dark Ritual's cooldown has been reduced from 4>3.

Blood Demon pet - Blood stack ability now grants bleed to only 1 enemy at the beginning of his turn, not all enemies, to help balance the Blood Mage's blood transfusion ability. 

Warlock - Demonic Ritual name changed to Demonic Form to avoid any confusion with the same name spell. Slow Gloom has had a name change to Creeping Gloom.

Totem Mastery - This ability has been changed entirely. New ability grants the Shaman a totem pairing bonus for having both the Wind and Healing totem out. This can only be achieved through a hybrid build when playing at level 5 in the Arena. The totem bonus for these 2 totems is that you receive all totem bonuses for all totems, making this a strong effect. Here's the Shaman deep dive if you need a reminder : https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/senior-games/heroes-of-the-shire-board-game/posts/3369762

Huntress - Target Practice spell previously reduced the CD of a spell by 2, the reduction has now been increased to 3 as this spell saw very little use. 

Paladin - Purify the Sick now grants all allies 2 HP, alongside cleansing all buffs and conditions.

Paladin - Light Screen which grants protection for 2 turns has been increased to 3 turns. The CD has also been increased from 3>5.

Paladin - War Banner, now grants +1 DEF for 3 turns on top of reducing all CD dice.

General Updates

General UI - Lacerate and Shadow elemental type have been increased in brightness to help them stand out against the dark backgrounds. A grunge effect has been added to the stats of all ally & pet cards.

HP change - All heroes starting HP has been increased by 4 to help allow some classes more time to pull off epic combos! 

Taunt condition upgrade - We have added a +4 base HP to help improve taunts functionality. Taunt now reads : You gain +4 base HP & you must absorb all effects of a spell on behalf of an ally. 

Action Cards - We have moved the outcomes of all action cards to the bottom half of the card, which will make a smoother solo mode experience, allowing players to hide the outcomes easier. 

...and now onto our Hero deep dive! 

The Alchemist

This is another unique hero that we have to offer! All 21 of our heroes are unique in their own right, but some offer very unique play styles and our Alchemist is one of those, which is why we've left her towards the end of our deep dives. We've had lots of positive feedback from our community on how different all of our heroes are and we've been praised a few times for not just re-skinning an existing hero. We hope that our Alchemist hero here continues to shine some light on how unique each hero within Heroes of the Shire really is. Now enough from me, let's dive right in! 

If you haven't caught up on our previous deep dives, you can find them all here.

Heroes : Blood Mage | Warlock | War Drummer | Illusionist | Shaman | Cleric | Bard | Shieldmaiden | Druid | Witch Doctor | Berserker | Dragon Knight | Engineer | Musketeer | Runesmith | Scholar |

Bosses : | Forest Troll | Earthasaurus | Armoured Crab | Tectonic Giant | White Widow | 

Alchemist 

Wasting no precious moment, the Alchemist forages every turn for medicinal flora from which to concoct her potent potions. She is the healer that everyone wants close to hand when things go wrong.

Alchemist Hero Ability 

The Alchemist adds all 6 potion cards to her ability tab at the beginning of battle. These potion cards are placed face down with the full art potion on display. Shown in the example here. 

The Alchemist must forage for wild flowers during her hero upkeep. In order to do this, you must play a mini-game of pairs, looking to match x2 wild flowers. Take your foraging deck (small cards), which consist of 12 wild flower cards and shuffle. Place the 12 cards face down in front of you and begin your game of pairs.

The Alchemist must note how many turns it took to forage the wild flowers as this will be important for the next step. Once 2 wild flowers have been matched, the Alchemist will conjure a potion for turn. Each set of wild flowers will conjure only 1 potion. See below which flowers conjure which potion.

Growth Potion - Lemon Balm flowers x2

Fire Potion - Crimson Bottlebrush flowers x2

Fortune Potion - Delphinium flowers x2

Nightfall Potion - Obsidian flowers x2

Light Potion - Calendula flowers x2

Protection Potion - Cow Parsley flowers x2

To conjure a potion you simply flip the card over revealing its effects for that turn. Each potion has different effects and the strength of the potion is determined by how many turns it took you to forage your wild flowers. The faster you find your wild flowers the more potent your potion will be. If you're lucky and forage first turn the strength of your potion will be very strong. If you're unfortunate and it takes you a long time finding your flowers, your potions will have no effect or sometimes negative effects for not just you, but your party. See the strength of the potions below : 

Growth Potion :

1 turn - all allies receive +1 all stats except HP for 3 turns.

2 turns - all allies receive +1 all stats except HP for 2 turns.

3 turns - all allies receive +1 all stats except HP for 1 turn.

4 turns - Nothing happens.

≥5 turns - All enemies receive +1 all stats except HP for 2 turns.

Fire Potion :

1 turn - all enemies receive 3 DMG + burn.

2 turns - all enemies receive 1 DMG + burn.

3 turns - all enemies burn.

4 turns - Nothing happens.

≥5 turns - All allies receive 2 DMG + burn.

Fortune Potion :

1 turn - all enemies receive -1 all base stats for 3 turns.

2 turns - all enemies receive -1 all base stats for 2 turns.

3 turns - all enemies receive -1 all base stats for 1 turn.

4 turns - Nothing happens.

≥5 turns - All enemies receive +1 all stats for 2 turns.

Nightfall Potion :

1 turn - all enemies receive 3 DMG + immobilise a spell for 2 turns.

2 turns - all enemies receive 1 DMG + immobilise a spell for 2 turns.

3 turns - all enemies receive 1 DMG + immobilise a spell for 1 turn.

4 turns - Nothing happens.

≥5 turns - All enemies receive +1 STR & INT for 2 turns.

Light Potion : 

1 turn - all enemies receive 3 DMG + glowing for 3 turns.

2 turns - all enemies receive 2 DMG + glowing for 2 turns.

3 turns - all enemies receive 1 DMG + glowing for 1 turn.

4 turns - Nothing happens.

≥5 turns - All allies receive -DEF & AGI for 2 turns.

Protection Potion :

1 turn - all allies receive a 4 HP shield.

2 turns - all allies receive a 2 HP shield.

3 turns -all allies receive a 1 HP shield.

4 turns - Nothing happens.

≥5 turns - all enemies receive a 2 HP shield.

Support Spells 

Purge - Remove a negative buff or condition from yourself. If you have no negative buffs or conditions instead you gain advantage and energised for 2 turns. 

Alchemist Insight - A split spell that grants 1 enemy -2 agility for 3 turns whilst granting an ally +2 agility for 3 turns. A difference of 4 agility can change the tides of battle!

Cure Wounds - A healing spell that targets all allies and grants them 7 HP. 

Negate - Remove all negative buffs and conditions from all allies. You gain 1 HP for each buff or condition removed this way.

Forage Master - During your next hero upkeep skip your forage ability and conjure any potion you like first turn. You also become immune to all damage for 1 turn. 

Attack Spells 

Threat Analysis -  A melee attack that deals 1 damage to an enemy whilst immobilising a spell for 2 turns.

Nature's Shield - A ranged earth elemental type attack that deals 1 damage to all enemies whilst also granting you protection for 2 turns. This attack has both strength and intellect modifiers. 

Transmute Poison - All enemies become poisoned.

Earth Shock - A ranged earth elemental type attack that deals 6 damage to a single enemy. This spell also removes all their buffs and conditions. 

Photosynthesis - A split spell with the first half dealing 4 damage to a single target whilst placing a glowing condition on them for 3 turns. The second half of the spell places a +2 HP regeneration condition for 3 turns on a target ally. The glowing condition is placed first with the HP regen on the second half of the spell, which in turn triggers the enemies glowing condition. 

Alchemist Spell Mastery

The Alchemist has 3 paths to follow, with each path giving her a unique play style. Become a Herbalist down the left, a Potion Specialist in the middle and learn the art of Levitation on the right. 

Herbalist 

This path leans in towards your foraging ability by unlocking Helpful Hand, an ability which allows you to peak at 1 card prior to foraging. Learn to strengthen your potions by making concoctions, an ability that allows the Alchemist to flip over 1 more card after she has finished foraging. The card that is flipped over grants its own unique bonus. Protect yourself by casting Ancient Flora and then dropping a taunt on an ally with Ancient Medicine. Learn to hide amongst the trees and gain cover from ranged attacks. A herbalist is no enemy to be ignored. 

Potion Specialist

The Alchemists DPS path! Whilst a support/healing hero, her damage output is not to be ignored. Gain HP when preparing your potions successfully in less than 3 turns. Unlock the powerful sleeping potion which puts your enemies to sleep for 2 turns. Penalise your enemies for having lots of buffs and conditions by improving the damage output immensely of your Earth Shock. Upgrading to the pursuit of progress will do just that, granting you an additional 1 damage for each buff or condition removed. See how the Berserker likes that!   

Levitation 

The title suggests it! Learn to fly with your floating potion which grants the flying condition to one ally for 3 turns. Flying heroes can only be targeted by ranged attacks. Learn to bounce back quickly after a powerful attack by granting yourself protection for 2 turns. If yours or an allies HP is looking a little low, try a little health exchange. When purging yourself just isn't good enough, upgrade it to target all allies. Last but by no means least is an ability, Defending Insight. This is an upgrade to your Alchemists Insight which grants an enemy not only -2 AGI, but also now -1 DEF for 3 turns. Then granting an ally not only +2 AGI but also +1 DEF for 3 turns. These important stats being swapped can easily lead to victory. A spell that on the surface doesn't feel exciting, but can be vital in combat. 

And that's a wrap for now guys!

We will be back soon with more updates and deep-dives. We've been asked to do a deep dive into the loot system, so we will prepare one of those for you in a future update. We've had around 73% of all our backers complete their pledge manager surveys, so thank you to everyone that has completed theirs. If anybody has an issues or questions, please don't hesitate to reach out and we will do our best to assist you. Until we meet again in another update, have a great week and we look forward to sharing more with you over the coming weeks. 

- Heroes of the Shire