Ahoy Defenders!

Dungeon Defenders II: The Isle of Dread Expansion is out now on ALL platforms! This expansion contains a treasure trove of features, changes, and improvements. Set sail for adventure on two new maps, strike down your foes to gain new weapons and Mods, take on new enemies, and so much more. Put on your best eye patch and get your parrot, let’s dive into some expansion notes!

We’re excited to be introducing not one, but two maps with this expansion. These maps are available as their own Adventure set, can be selected when playing Expeditions, can come up as you progress through Onslaught, and one is even a Chaos VII Incursion!

The Jacked Sparrow

The first map is set on The Jacked Sparrow, previously known as The Sparrow before the heroes of Etheria hijacked it in order to reach their destination. As you traverse this map, enemies attack from above and below the levels of the ship, requiring all hands on deck to keep the masts safe from destruction! There’s a ton of fun to be had aboard this ship, as you use cannons to blast your enemies away, catapults to fly across the map, and vantage points to take out enemies when they least expect it!

Plunderer's Paradise

After braving the rough seas, the heroes land on an island besieged by an army of the Old One trying to break into the island’s mountain. Among these enemies are new foes that have not been seen before, helping beef up the horde that is coming your way! Protect the island to prevent havoc breaking loose, but also explore to find secrets hidden throughout the map. Conquer the Incursion version of this map by striking down Captain Dreadbones to unlock a new Barbarian weapon to add to your arsenal!

There’s a slew of enemies that are now donning pirate attire, an absolute necessity when conquering on such vicious tides! Here are a few of the enemies you encounter on your journey.


These goblins upped their pirate fashion game, but they also recruited additional allies to take down heroes from afar.


Cannon Ogres have joined the ranks of foes you must face! They are a fearsome terror that can ruin your defenses and range, but are also deadly when you’re up close and personal.


A cursed orc pirate, Captain Dreadbones, is a new boss that you encounter in this expansion. You can fight him and his mighty crew in Plunderer’s Paradise on all game modes the map is available! Be careful, his cursed strength is nothing to underestimate.



The War Table is improved with this expansion, adding some wonderful visuals to the world of Etheria, and also providing some quality of life changes as requested by our glorious community! The World Map shows all the different places Defenders may explore through different game modes:

• Campaign: A new World Map that outlines where you’ve been, and where you’ll be going!
  
• Expeditions: Choose the region, map, and difficulty you want!
  
• Adventures: Four zones full of different Adventure story arcs are available to choose from!
  
• Onslaught: Hop right into your floor and get to climbing!
  
• Mastery: With a similar look to Expeditions, you can see your Mastery Star progression!
  
• Incursions: You can change difficulties to see each available Incursion!

Each game mode contains different formats for ease of use, but also provide an “Advanced View” session browser in each. The Session Browser allows quick visibility of all the games going on, allowing players to filter down to specific maps within specific difficulties of specific game modes. Very specific!

When navigating through the various world maps, there is also a new indicator that shows which maps are included in Daily and Weekly quests!



Interacting with players is getting some good attention with this expansion, with much more coming even after the expansion! Player Lists are now easier to navigate, selecting another Defender and choosing to inspect their shop or invite them to party among other options provided via a drop down menu.

The Player List menu has also received additional features. You can now see who’s in your party, who’s the party leader, any friends in the hub, and skip time inspecting every player by seeing who has items listed in their shop!

Receiving invites is also streamlined to not take over your screen and there’s a timer to avoid invite spam. Parties received attention as well, for instance, the leader is now consistent and gives control to choose when and where your crew go! We’re continuing to develop social interactions between players, and this is a giant first step towards making it an easier and more enjoyable experience.



This is something we are introducing to help Defenders overcome the challenges they are presented with and promoting experimentation as you progress. Sometimes you can get up to a certain point and you want to try a different strategy. That’s where Replay From Wave comes in!

Now when you fail a wave, the Performance Optimization System outlines what defenses fell or which ones may have been underperforming. You are able to evaluate what changes you need, make adjustments, and get back to overcoming the challenge before you.

This system is available in Adventures, Expeditions, Onslaught, AND Mastery (without losing stars). The only caveat to this is that Replay From Wave is not available on Lost Temple, as it’s meant to stand as a final gauntlet to overcome every five floors. We can’t wait to see how far this system let’s Defenders go!



It’s finally here — one map floors are now the standard in Onslaught! This change was due to a lot of great feedback many of you provided. There are a few things that needed to change when going towards the one map format:

• Difficulty Scaling: We shifted the focus of investing time into each floor to overcoming greater difficulties sooner. As a result the rewards previously earned in Onslaught at various floors (Floor 114 for instance) are scaled down to the same difficulty; Ancient Power reset minimum reset floor is lowered; and Omega Waves were added in as an extra challenge to provide a greater feeling of progression.
  
• Rewards: Since players are facing a greater challenge faster, we wanted rewards that reflected overcoming said challenges. Now every 10 floors, players receive an Prestigious Weapon, with a guarantee on their unique Mods to roll a five or higher!
  
• More Maps: You are now going to be exposed to every map (except boss maps) as you climb Onslaught. Every five maps runs a format of easy, medium, and hard maps, with the fifth map being The Lost Temple!
  
• More Schedules: There are even more enemy schedules that you'll encounter now!
  
• Omega Waves: This is a new sixth wave added to the end of The Lost Temple. It’s a small victory lap as you continue to climb, where you will be provided with Mini-Boss only waves and unique schedules!

Onslaught is something we want to continue to build upon. With the feedback you provide, we’re able to make sure that we keep putting out content you enjoy, and these Onslaught changes are a result of that. We can’t wait to see how high you climb, maybe even a Memes For Marcos 2.0 is in our future!



Onslaught and Ancient Power go together like pirates and the ocean, so of course we added more to this system! Ancient Powers themselves are more powerful than before and require less of a point investment to utilize their maximum potential. Now two players are able to reach the maximum strength provided by Ancient Power, previously something only four players were able to do.

There are also FOUR new powers to help bolster your battle against the horde of enemies coming your way. Protean Shift brought some order to the Critical Chance/Damage system, and as a result we are able to add the following Ancient Powers:

• Hero Critical Chance
  
• Hero Critical Damage
  
• Defense Critical Chance
  
• Defense Critical Damage

Ancient Power is also more accessible early on now. You are able to gain Ancient Power after completing Floor 30! You do not have to acquire Ancient Power here and can keep climbing gaining higher Minimum Ascension as you progress through floors. Previously you gained 3 Minimum Ascension for every floor you completed (with three map floors), but now you gain 12 Minimum Ascension for every floor with the one map system, and also gain 4 Talent Cap increases per floor as well!

As you gain more Ancient Power, your Minimum Ancient Power Floor increases as well. This system continues to climb until your Minimum Ancient Power Floor reaches Floor 50, requiring you to reach Floor 80 to acquire additional Ancient Power. You then have access to Floor 50 right away after acquiring Ancient Power, granted you’re equipped to take on those challenges!

One final change when acquiring Ancient Power: your pets no longer reset! This change may not be permanent as we’re investigating ways to improve pets, but for now, your pets are untouched by the Ancient Power System!

There’s one thing that pirates are always on the hunt for — TREASURE! There are multiple ways to acquire the new items coming.

Professor Proteus’s Seaworthy Weapons
Professor Proteus now has a new cache of weapons available for Defenders taking on the high seas. Using these weapons provide unique death animations that are fitting for the battles that await you! Turn your enemies into a boat, and watch them sink into a whirlpool, or drop your enemies and make them flop like a fish.

There are multiple animations these weapons provide, and they are available on all weapons! The variety of animations are on a rotation daily, so be sure to check back regularly to see if the one you want is available.

Pirate Map Seaworthy Weapons
We’re trying something new by allowing Defenders to get these new weapons by completing the new maps! These weapons do not have the unique death animations, but instead come with all new Mods. These Mods are not weapon or hero specific, though some of them are bound to being melee or ranged only. They aren’t like Mods that are currently in the game, some take your movement speed into account; another has a chance to poison, drench, or oil your enemies; and another can even prevent Dark Assassins from stunning you!

There are ten to discover, and they can only be acquired through completing The Jacked Sparrow, Plunderer’s Paradise, or through Player Shops

Depending on where you acquire these weapons, you are also met with new pirate themed Mods that pack quite a punch that can be transferred to any weapon; or unique death animations that can sink your enemies (literally, one can turn them into a boat and sink into the ground)!

What good expansion doesn’t contain some new features? We’re introducing new features to help Defenders as they keep Dragonfall and Etheria safe.

Primary Stat Reroll
Primary Stat reroll system that we’re experimenting with. This system allows you to acquire reroll materials from completing the Jacked Sparrow and Plunderer’s Paradise, and reroll your primary stat into a potentially higher number. This change is not enforced if the roll is lower, you are always given a choice to accept it or decline! The new reroll materials are also able to be traded.We’re looking for feedback on this system and if you all enjoy it, we’ll investigate greatly expanding it.

Player Shop Changes
There are a some changes coming with Player Shops to make them more enticing to a larger amount of Defenders:

Use any piece of gear you purchase! Previously players were limited to buying a piece of gear that was only available to their level. This meant players having gold to purchase cool Mods, but not having the gear score to do so. Now when you purchase a piece of gear, the gear is scaled down to your Champion Score. After purchasing an item, and it scaling, you are still able to sell it on your shop. Even more Defenders can now participate in buying and selling!

Gem Mine
We’ve introduced a new way for Defenders to get a sweet deal on gems. The Gem Mine can be purchased from the platform stores, providing 100 gems everyday that you login for 30 consecutive days. That’s a total of 3000 gems for a lot less!

Protean Shift brought a lot of new ways to play and a ton of power to Defenders, which we really love! As a result, there are a slew of things that are either not as strong as we’d like or too strong, removing any challenge while playing. We’ve discussed a couple of these, let’s get into it:

Abyss Lord

• Towers
  
  • Colossus
    
    • Range increased to 800 from 600 (33% increase!)
      
    • Skeletal Archers
      
      • Damage scaling increased to 15 from 11.5 (30+% increase!)
        
      • Ramsters
        
        • Direct Command range increased to 5000 from 4000 (25% increase!)

Dryad

• Towers
  
  • Harpy’s Perch
    
    • Damage scaling increased to 5.175 from 4.5 (15% increase!)
      
    • Hornet’s Nest
      
      • Hornets from any nest can attack any enemy. Previously only one hornet per nest could attack the same enemy.
        
        Up to three hornets can attack the same enemy, regardless of where the hornet spawns.

EV2

• Towers
  
  • Weapon Manufacturer
    
    • Minimum range added to node placement similar to Auras. This change bring this tower in-line to similar towers, while still keeping it unique.

Huntress

• Towers
  
  • Explosive Trap
    
    • Damage scaling increased to 6.6 from 5.5 (20% increase!)
      
    • Range scaling increased to 0.0575 from 0.05 (15% increase!)
      
    • Range Max increased to 1150 from 1000 (15% increase!)
      
    • Base Range increased to 6900 from 6000 (15% increase!)
      
    • Trigger Radius increase to 400 from 200 (100% increase!)

Lavamancer

• Towers
  
  • Volcano
    
    • Damage scaling increased to 9.31 from 7 (33% increase!)

Mystic

• Towers
  
  • Sand Viper
    
    • Damage scaling increased to 6.875 from 5.5 (25% increase!)

Squire

• Towers
  
  • Ballista
    
    • Damage scaling increased to 21.27 from 18 (18+% increase!)

• Tower Mods
  
  • Unique Defense Crit Chance Servo
    
    • Increased max Crit Chance to 30% from 25% (5% increase!)
  • Unique Defense Crit Damage Servo
    
    • Increased max Crit Damage to 40% from 35% (5% increase!)
  • Boom Mods
    
    • We’ve changed how boom mods work. Previously they were a flat percentage that allowed them to scale infinitely, making them a must for climbing later floors.
      
      They’ve been retooled to do damage based on the enemies they explode up to a cap. The number shown is an average of what that damage is based on the different kinds of enemies within that group. For example, a melee-splosion does less damage when exploding a small goblin than it does when exploding a berserker orc.

• Chaos VIII Amps and High Onslaught Mods
  
  • Modified Mark’s Thoughts:
    These now start dropping at floor 35. Their drop chance increases every two floors you complete up to a cap on Floor 83 for Amps and Floor 92 for Mods.

• All C8 shards have been disabled. We may revisit them sometime in the future, but to provide an equal battlefield for all Defenders, we’ve disabled C8 shards for now.
  
• We made some pathing adjustments, fixes to spawners, and adjustment to enemies that should improve their pathing across several maps. Looking at you Northwest flier lane in Lost Temple!
  
• Fixed a bug where the Betsy Staff could cause enemies to, more or less, one shot anything in their path.
  
• Fixed an issue with Betsy’s Curse shard allowing enemies to one shot anything in their path.
  
• Fixed spelling errors on Unique Crit Chance Servo, Unique Crit Damage Servo, Defense Crit Chance Servo, and Defense Crit Damage Servo.
  
• Removed some tutorial text that was hanging out in Gates of Dragonfall - Hard.
  
• Fixed a rare issue where when an item is upgraded to 10/10 Chaos 7 the ipwr could go to 0.
  
• Fixed an issue where Consecutive Win Bonus XP was being multiplied by Ancient Power an additional time.
  
• EV-2 no longer infinitely lazers the Bastille Master in her incursion.
  
• Fixed several cases where the Bastille Master could get stuck.
  
• Fixed an issue where players could get into a state where they were unable to evolve pets.
  
• Fixed a case where split-screen users could have the Player Shops overlapping the Ancient Power UI.
  
• Player Shops - "Your inventory is full" notification now shows on other players shops when your inventory is full
  
• Piercing Towers now pierce Vanguards.
  
• Protective Downgrade Servo and Last Stand Chip now have a vfx to show when the effect triggers.

A lot of you submit bug reports constantly, and we make sure to squash as many of them as we can. As with any expansion, there are a lot of fixes coming your way. Please continue to submit them to our bug site, your help is invaluable to knocking out some of the pesky issues that appear.

• If beyond the first three tutorial maps, hitting Play Now on the main menu sends you to town.
  
• Traps are not respawning correctly when using Replay From Wave.
  
• Temporary fix in for rare instances where upgrading gear to 10/10 would greatly lower it’s stats. For these rare instances, instead of greatly lowering, stats are now slightly raised. This is a catch for if this error occurs, not a change applied to all gear.
  
• Tower-like abilities (Talisman of Empowerment, Abyss Stone, etc.) are running into a few issues that we’re aware of.
  
• The Champion Score filter is currently not functioning correctly.
  
• Player 2 in splitscreen is able to be kicked from party when in a party with a leader that isn't part of the splitscreen
  
• When the first player in split screen mode spends or receives currency the pop up appears on both screens.
  
• When placing defenses on the bottom floor of The Jacked Sparrow there is a chance to have it go to the top layer

There’s a lot of people playing Dungeon Defenders II, and a lot of them gather on our social hubs. When it comes to finding other players, figuring out how to conquer a specific challenge, or just wanting to get to know others in the community, or getting the latest DD2 news, you can’t go wrong with our social platforms:

• Twitter
  
• Facebook
  
• Discord
  
• Twitch

The entire team has had a blast making this content, we cannot wait for all of you to get your hands on this expansion. Get to setting sail!

For Etheria!

The Dungeon Defenders II Team

Greetings Defenders,

We're excited to finally be announcing the release date for Dungeon Defenders II: The Isle of Dread Update! Originally it was going to be announced during our Dev Stream, but when have pirates ever followed the rules?!

The Isle of Dread Update is releasing on Wednesday, September 26th — THAT'S NEXT WEEK!

Dev Stream 85 is happening tomorrow, September 21st at 3PM EDT, is going to show off more of what's to come. We cannot wait for you to get this update into your hands and hooks!

Click here to check out a lot of the changes and features coming!

For Etheria!

The Dungeon Defenders II Team

Greetings Defenders,

Protean Shift Patch 3.2 is now live! We’ve been hard at work ever since Professor Proteus made his glorious arrival in Etheria! The feedback from all of you has been tremendous and we greatly appreciate it. We’re addressing requests that players have wanted both for a while now and recently with the Protean Shift expansion. Let’s get into it!

Defenders love playing together, there is strength in numbers after all. Previously, when playing in multiplayer settings, enemies became stronger, but did not offer any additional rewards for the harder challenge. This is a pain point that you as a community have voiced to us for a long time, and with gear in a much better spot, we now have a way to reward the increased difficulty!

Previously, when playing in multiplayer sessions, enemies gained additional health without offering any increased rewards. Now when teaming up with fellow Defenders, you now gain additional Gear from Victory Chests. You may be asking, “how much?”, and the answer is A LOT. Here’s the breakdown you can expect to see when playing with multiple Defenders:

• One Defender: Remains the same.
  
• Two Defenders: +125% additional Gear drops!
  
• Three Defenders: +275% additional Gear drops!
  
• Four Defenders: +425% additional Gear drops!

When playing solo, the Escape/Options menu shows:


When in a group of two:


This pattern increases the more Defenders in your session. To have our bases covered, Gear is specifically armor, weapons, and relics. These additional pieces of gear offer players multiple opportunities on finding perfect stats and Mods while taking on stronger enemies. This means you have more gear to use or sell, boosting Defender strength and our player economy substantially. As a result, we’ve slightly tweaked sell prices to vendors. With the increased loot drops, you’ll be making on average the same amount of gold when selling to vendors. However, we maintained previous minimum Player Shop sell value of items to offset this. You’re now provided more opportunities to sell more gear between one another to obtain greater mountains of wealth than ever before!

We were able to get these changes out now to provide a feature the community highly requested thanks to the feedback we received via a survey many of you participated in. One concern that several Defenders brought up was in regard to party control and functionality. These will be coming in our next Update among a slew of new features not too far from now. We’ll touch on some additional changes later on in these notes!

In Protean Shift, we introduced a good chunk of crafting materials for Defenders to have more control over their gear. There’s a ton of new materials and one bit of feedback that we’ve received quite often, is about storing these spoils of combat.



Enter the Material Vault! It’s a new vault that will be available to players that want to be able to store extra crafting materials. This special vault allows you to hold 999 of every crafting material and access to materials saved in your Material Vault regardless of where you are. Want to pump up the strength of your gear, or move some Mods around, but you put the materials in your Material Vault? You can now do it on the fly without pulling the materials out! When doing anything that requires crafting materials, Inventory Materials are used first before using crafting materials in your Materials Vault.



In our last Check-In post, we outlined some short, medium, and long term goals. In our next update, here’s a sneak peek as to what you can expect to see:

• Onslaught floors are always one map floors.
  
• Extra rewards as you climb through Onslaught.
  
• Improvements to Ancient Power
  
• Increased party control and functionality
  
• And…. A NEW BOSS, WEAPONS, MAPS, AND MUCH MUCH MORE!

As development continues, we’re going to be providing opportunities to test this content and earn “Tester Only” rewards, such as Betsy White, a true friend and confidant to any Defender.

• Improved enemy spawn and pathing logic so enemies getting stuck in spawns will now have a better chance of finding their way out of the spawner.
  
• Fixed additional cases where Berserker Orcs would get around blockades and walls.
  
• Fixed an issue in Player Shops that caused a visual duplication while moving items.
  
• Fixed an issue with Abyss Stone and Abyss Fountain giving an incorrect error message when there’s not enough mana available to use them.
  
• Updated Shard Dust description to explain how it’s acquired.
  
• Fixed a bug where the Jackpot shard increases gold reward upon wave completion.
  
• Fixed an issue with comparison tooltips remaining when closing the Vault UI.
  
• Fixed the text size of “LIST IT!” on 4k resolutions.
  
• Fixed an issue with Gilded Colossal Fissure Shards receiving a negative increase.
  
• Fixed an issue with Campaign Boot tinkering requiring an Iron Hammer.
  
• Fixed an issue with Chaos V Boot upgrades requiring weapon crafting materials.
  
• Fixed an issue with buy back items going to the wrong location in the inventory.
  
• Fixed an issue where items claimed at the Scavenger while the inventory is full would look like it had been claimed but was still in the Scavenger.

Remember, if you run into any bugs, please let us know at our bug site. Also, check us out on social media for additional updates and game discussions with our awesome community:

• Twitter
  
• Facebook
  
• Discord
  
• Twitch

We have much more on the way and will be spilling some beans in the coming weeks!

For Etheria,

The Dungeon Defenders II Team

Greetings Defenders,

We’ve been hard at work ever since Professor Proteus made his glorious arrival in Etheria! The feedback from all of you has been tremendous and we greatly appreciate it. There’s more coming in our next update, but there’s also more coming next week with Protean Shift Patch 3.2!

There are some nice quality of life features that are coming with next week’s patch, let’s get into it!

Defenders love playing together, there is strength in numbers after all. When playing together, enemies get stronger, but there’s not any increased reward for that increased risk. Well not anymore! We have been testing and looking for ways to reward players without trivializing content. With this patch, when grouping with other Defenders, you will receive additional loot from the victory chest. This scales per player added to the session, meaning the more Defenders you play with, the more loot you receive. The more loot you receive, the higher the chance at getting perfect mods!

In Protean Shift, we introduced a good chunk of crafting materials for Defenders to have more control over their gear. There’s a ton of new materials and one bit of feedback that we’ve received quite often, is about storing these spoils of combat.

Enter the Material Vault! The Material Vault is a new vault that will be available to players that want to be able to store extra crafting materials. This special vault allows you to hold 999 of every crafting material, and you will be able to automatically use them when interacting with items. Want to pump up the strength of your gear, but you put the materials in your Material Vault? You can now do it on the fly!

There’s a giant “wave” of stuff coming to Etheria in our next update that is sure to knock your socks off. Related to multiplayer incentives, we’re going to be providing Defenders greater control over the parties they start, something many of you have asked for is on it’s way. We can’t get into a ton of the stuff coming just yet, but give Elandrian’s Check-In a visit to get an idea for what’s coming!

As always, we’re going to be squishing a lot of bugs, increasing performance, and increasing stability. Remember, if you run into any bugs, please let us know at our bug site. Also, check us out on social media for additional updates and game discussions with our awesome community:

• Twitter
  
• Facebook
  
• Discord
  
• Twitch

We have much more on the way and will be spilling some beans in the coming weeks!

For Etheria,

The Dungeon Defenders II Team

Greetings Defenders,

Patch 3.1 is now live on Steam! This is our first Protean Shift patch that brings some nice quality of life changes, balance changes, and a slew of bug fixes. Let’s get into it!

• Shocking Revelation Mod
  
  • Stun duration reduced from 5 seconds to 1 second.
    
    • Stun was lasting way longer than the intended power of this Mod.

Buyback has been added! It is shown as the last tab in your inventory and items are removed from buyback if you leave the session you're in.



Added the option to not show a warning when selling a Mythical or Legendary quality item.

• Fixed an issue where Ancient lifesteal was not healing players.
  
• Fixed an issue where Tenacity was not reducing by the amount listed.
  
• Fixed an issue where listing an item did not warn the player they will need to pay a tax to remove the item.
  
• Fixed it so all anti-orc Mods now apply to Berserker Orcs.
  
• Fixed an issue with the Quake Shard and Shielding Guard Shard showing as Campaign Shards and awarding Campaign Dust.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Withering Bubble Shard was not dropping in Campaign.
  
• Fixed an issue so the Initiate can use the Drain Aura Mod now.
  
• Fixed an issue where Shatterquake was showing fire VFX.
  
• Fixed a typo on the Lifeburn Armor Mod.
  
• Fixed an issue where Seismic Flame was lasting longer than intended and updated its description for clarity.
  
• Updated the Buried bastille description.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Seismic Launch Chip allowed the Squire to complete the Smack Up Monk challenge.
  
• Adjusted the Terrablade weapons to have full descriptions.
  
• Fixed an issue where Hard Mode Campaign items could not transfer Mods to Normal Mode Campaign items.
  
• Fixed an issue where some pets had way higher Crit Damage than intended.
  
• Fixed an issue that occasionally when gaining Ancient Power players would not receive an Ancient Power weapon.
  
• Fixed an issue with item stacking in inventories and not being able to re-stack them.
  
• Fixed an issue with Chaos V glove Tinkering using a shiny chest material instead of a shiny glove material.
  
• Fixed an issue with Private Tavern and Town vendors not updating their stock correctly.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Lash Out Ascension talent was not functioning for the poison damage.
  
• Fixed an issue with consecutive win bonuses applying to special Play Shop purchases.
  
• Fixed an issue with Flame Aura hitting players when the owner leaves town.
  
• Fixed an issue with X-splosion Mods killing players.
  
• Fixed an issue with Drain Aura damaging players.
  
• Fixed an issue with Incursion Weapon Mods being replacable via Tinkering.
  
• Fixed an issue with Lunar Portal and Ghastly Halberds spawning more than intended.
  
• Fixed an issue with Onslaught and Ancient Power challenges not unlocking correctly.
  
• Fixed an issue where Autumeow’s tail would change colors incorrectly.
  
• Fixed an issue with tooltips overlapping in splitscreen shops.
  
• Updated the attack speed icon on Axes.
  
• Removed the Death Override icon on the Protean Shield.
  
• Items with zero Mods are hidden in the Reforging Quick Picker window when selecting an item to pull Mods from.
  
• Fixed an issue when creating a hero that offered “select hero” instead of the option to “back”.
  
• Fixed an issue with dropped equipment showing gamepad context that doesn’t work on PC.
  
• Fixed an issue with the cursor going behind Mods on Wayfarer weapons.
  
• Changed the description of Vial of Dragon Sweat to not say “Open to Unlock”.
  
• Fixed an issue with the Abyss Lord’s Skeletal Ramsters and Skeletal Archer towers not showing their base when an elemental Mod was equipped.
  
• Fixed an issue where oil traps on Ramparts slowed Berserker Orcs.
  
• Fixed an issue with overlapping UIs when splitscreen players join while a fullscreen window is open.
  
• Fixed an issue with protective Downgrade Servo not updating its stats when inspecting it after it gets downgraded.
  
• Fixed an issue where Feed x10 was consuming 10 pieces of food even if 10 was not needed to cap the pet.
  
• Fixed an issue with Flamethrower tower VFX not getting bigger with Defense Range.
  
• Fixed an issue with “Create Hero” appearing unlocked if you tried to purchase a hero and did not have enough currency.
  
• Fixed an issue with tower abilities not stopping when the tower is stunned.
  
• Fixed an issue with Defender Packs where rerolling would leave the previous contents on the ground.
  
• Fixed an issue with The Defender of Etheria achievements not unlocking on Xbox.
  
• Fixed an issue where the inventory would lose navigation input on controllers.
  
• Fixed an issue with the Quake Shard’s VFX appearing in the middle of players instead of at their feet.
  
• Fixed an issue with Automation Shard not working on Snaking Sands, Slime Pits, Geyser Traps, and Angry Nimbus towers.
  
• Fixed an issue with the falling leaf VFX on Forest Biome not triggering correctly.
  
• Changed two shards to now be named “Betsy’s Zapper” and “Betsy’s Beam” to better fit the UI.
  
• Implemented a sound for un-equipping gear.
  
• Implemented a sound for equipping shards via Right Mouse Button.
  
• Fixed an issue with placing Mods into the third slot of a Legendary/Epic that was advanced, that caused them to not function properly.
  
• Adjusted Abyss Stones hit SFX location to emit from the correct position.
  
• Fixed an issue with the Abyss Lord’s book landing correctly when he dies.
  
• Updated the bag icons with Blue Gem Icons.
  
• Fixed an issue connecting to an event server that could result in a crash.
  
• Fixed the VFX for EV2 canisters.

Remember, if you run into any bugs, please let us know at our bug site. Also, check us out on social media for additional updates and game discussions with our awesome community:

• Twitter
  
• Facebook
  
• Discord
  
• Twitch

We have much more on the way and will be spilling some beans in the coming weeks!

For Etheria,

The Dungeon Defenders II Team

Defenders Assemble! Sound the horns of Dragonfall! I come bearing beans!

Well, I have some beans, but I also wanted to talk about the recent launch of Protean Shift. It’s been a busy past two weeks for us here at Trendy and it’s great to finally get the expansion into everyone's hands. We’ve been scouring the forums and our various social platforms for comments and feedback, and it’s tremendously valuable for helping us shape what’s coming soon in upcoming patches. I also want to give you guys a glimpse at the future of the game as well, so read everything for all the juicy details.

In response to feedback (and just our planning in general), we have a bundle of changes, new content, and bug fixes coming soon. I’m not going to give any real time-frames… our goal is to get new changes and content out as quick as possible for everyone, but we’re a tiny team and we’re working as fast as we can! Here’s a quick list of some of our targets:

• Bug Fixes (duh.)
  
• Buyback Functionality
  
  • This is currently in testing/iteration and we want to get it out soon. We really want to make sure there’s a way to get back items you’ve sold by accident. It will most likely just save some of the items you’ve been selling until you leave the Town or Tavern.

• Better Sorting/Filtering of the Inventory
  
  • One thing we want to improve is your ability to find your good items in an easier way. This will take a little more work, but we’re going to try to give you better sorting of item types, as well as possible sorting by your strong MOD rolls… or should I say “those big 5/5 Qualibeans.”
    
  • This also might include some changes to help find Shards and manage them better, but that might require additional time as well.

• Materials Vault Tabs?
  
  • This is something we’re investigating too. We saw some players talking about this so we’re looking at making a section of the vault be able to support bigger stacks of materials and connect to all the places you want to spend them. We’re aiming for this to be a “short term” add… but it might end up taking a little longer.

• Onslaught Changes
  
  • I’m not going to go into TOO many details, as it’s still being discussed among the Design team… but I will say we have some goals for these changes.
    We want to make it easier for players to play and progress together.
    We want to make the floors more significant to progress between.
    We want to make it easier to make meaningful progression and less punishing. (Aka. Three map floors might go the way of Skill Spheres.)

• Ancient Power Changes
  
  • These are going to be some changes to make it fit more in line with the Onslaught changes.
    
  • We’re also looking at making the resets more forgiving as you gain Ancient Power too. Again, not going to go into specifics as this is still an active discussion… but we ARE reading/discussing all the various opinions from the community and our testing teams.

• Better party functionality.
  
  • We’re trying to add more social functionality here… Things like better party leader knowledge in matchmaking, inviting/kicking from parties, a friends list? There’s a lot on the schedule to add here, we’re going to get to as much as possible.

• Increased Multiplayer Incentive
  
  • We want people to be enjoying Dungeon Defenders together, but we know there’s not a lot of reasons to do so at the moment. We’re aiming at changing this, while still keeping solo-play viable.

• Better Matchmaking.
  
  • This is another laundry list of changes, but we want it to be easier for people to play together and stay together. We also want to make the flow to get into gameplay much easier and with less interruptions and disconnects.

• Guilds
  
  • Secrets...

Now all these updates and changes are well and good, but we’ve also seen a certain desire from one or two community members. It’s been spoken of only occasionally… and by so few that we weren’t sure if it was important or not to everyone...
/endsarcasm

Our heroes will be receiving some calls to action to various regions of Etheria very soon. The first region our heroes will be heading to will be a somewhat familiar location. The distress call will come from a certain coastal region...



Just for some extra beanage at the end here: There will be a new region to go to, new things to get, and possibly some new threats to face…

We appreciate all our players sticking with us as we continue to evolve and release our vision for Year Two of Dungeon Defenders II. We couldn’t have done any of this without all of your help.

Thank you from all of us here at Trendy Entertainment.

Sincerely,

Colin “Elandrian” Fisher

Defenders, it’s finally time. Protean Shift is launching and we could not have done it without you.

We set out with some lofty goals, but with your help we were able to make some significant changes to Dungeon Defenders II. We wanted to give you greater attachment to your items, but also more options to share those items with your friends. We wanted to give you map choice while progressing through Trials, but also give you more ways to progress your gear while advancing through the tiers. We also wanted to give you some better options with your existing items so we added Shard Dusting and Gilding. We also hear your concern about Gilding and we’ll keep an eye on it for iteration.

We’re constantly tweaking and improving our game that we share with all of you, and we hope you will enjoy our enhanced direction for year two of this wonderful game.

From everyone here at Trendy Entertainment, thank you for supporting Dungeon Defenders II and helping us continue to move the game forward. We’re a small team in Gainesville, Florida and we appreciate every bit of excitement and support that you give us.

We hope you enjoy this “Shift” in our game, and we can’t wait to focus on what we’re working on next.

We know you want more maps, Onslaught changes and Ancient Power enhancements.

We’re on it.

Greetings Defenders,

It’s finally here, Dungeon Defenders II: Protean Shift is live on all platforms! Professor Proteus is now in Dragonfall and started a technomagical evolution throughout all of Etheria. Now the Defenders of Etheria can obtain new ways to fight off enemy forces, choose where they fight, and what equipment they want to use in order to ensure victory!

The Protean Shift brings a slew of new features that Defenders can use to empower their defenses and Heroes, as well as choose the way they want to play. M.O.D.S. allow for custom builds to take on any foe that comes your way, Expeditions give Defenders the choice to play any map they want in any Chaos difficulty, and Player Shops let you buy and sell items with other Defenders. There’s so much more, let’s get into it!

Check out the trailer here!

This is our most foundational change in the expansion. Now your gear’s stats looks much different than before. The first change is making the damage from critical strikes scale off of the base damage for both your heroes and your towers. Critical Damage is no longer a secondary stat, but is a percentage that starts at +30% damage and increases through Gear, Shards, and Ascension Levels. Because of the change to Critical Damage, the Critical Chance cap of 33% has been removed — the sky’s the limit now!

One of the goals of the Critical Damage change is to make damage more reliable. Critical Damage builds are still fun, but other playstyles should feel just as rewarding. Every hero and tower’s base damage has been increased to account for the changes made, making damage more consistent and allowing for even more unique builds!

Since we changed how Critical Damage is understood, we decided to tackle another confusing area for players: Defense Speed. The stat is now a percentage instead of being numbers that go into the thousands with no clear meaning. This change allows players to understand exactly how much faster their defenses attack rate will increase.

Defenders now possess the opportunity to build however they want to fight off their foes. Gear is meant to feel more unique, instead of receiving a legendary that gives every stat. Your gear now provides choice and lets you decide how you play!

Gear now has a primary and secondary stat. Your heroes maintain similar power as they had before the expansion, both offensively and defensively. This balance is a result of increasing base stats and the scaling of those stats. Here’s what you now find on gear:

• Helmets, Gloves, Chest, and Boots
  
  • Primary Stat: Armor
    
  • Secondary: Health, Ability Power, or Hero Damage
• Weapons
  
  • Primary Stat: Hero Damage
    
  • Secondary Stat: Armor, Health, or Ability Power
• Medallions, Marks, and Orbs (if you have them still, you pack rat!)
  
  • Primary Stat: Defense Power
    
  • Secondary Stat: Defense Health
• Totems
  
  • Primary Stat: Defense Health
    
  • Secondary Stat: Defense Power

These changes allow players to customize their builds even more than before. If you want to maintain a similar amount of balance with damage output and health on your heroes, you can do that easily. However, if you want to make an unstoppable tank that requires an army to take down, or want a glass cannon that can obliterate every enemy on the map, that option is now yours as well!

For relics, we wanted to make sure that defenses were reliable and also strong. These changes now make it so building auras and traps early do not feel punishing because they now have guaranteed Defense Health to keep them up much longer. Having Defense Power as a guaranteed stat also make damage more consistent and less frustrating when you don’t critically strike. This is just the baseline, with M.O.D.S., Shards, and Ascension Levels, you can radically change the type of damage you deal. All these changes are a shift to make Defenders stronger through the power of customization!


Professor Proteus sent a shockwave out across all of Etheria upon his arrival, using his inventive intellect to alter every piece of gear! Magically Offense/Defensive Subroutines (M.O.D.S., or even simpler — Mods) provide the pathway of making gear your own! Mods come in a variety of power! Some are pure stat increases, from the stats you get on gear, to newly changed stats such as Critical Damage, Critical Chance, and Defense Speed. Some add elemental damage to physical damage towers, and have unique VFX depending on the element! Others offer the chance to change how your Defenses overcome specific Chaos enemies. Want to:

• Have towers immune to Hex Thrower curses? You can do that.
  
• Pierce a Shield Geodes shield? You can do that.
  
• Make your Traps, Auras, and Nodes, immune to Cyborks?! You can do that!

Mods bring a lot of additional power and customization that many Defenders have wanted for a long time. There are over 100 Mods to discover, with more coming down the road.

Now that you have an idea of what Mods do, it’s time to discuss specifically where you have them. Mods are an extension of your gear, and are a brand new addition to various tiers of your equipment. They are an additional property to gear similar to Shards, and unlock in a similar fashion:

• Uncommon
  
  • One open Mod slot
• Epic:
  
  • One rolled Mod slot
    
  • One open Mod slot (two mod slots total)
• Mythical
  
  • One rolled Mod slot
    
  • Two open Mod slots (three mod slots total)
• Legendary:
  
  • Two rolled Mod slots
    
  • One open Mod slot (three Mod slots total)

These changes make Legendary items contain two stats, three Mod slots, and three Shard Slots, and increased stats, making them truly legendary. These Mods are just the first of what’s to come. In future updates, we are releasing additional Mods. Have an idea for more, let us know by posting on our forums, we’d love to hear your ideas!

Also, as a side note, Mods make things easier in Mastery, though they are scaled down to the appropriate Chaos tier.


Professor Proteus, in his astounding intellect, wanted to really provide customization and options to not only the power of gear, but also to keeping the gear and/or Mods that you’ve obtained. That’s where Tinkering enters into the mix! Tinkering is the ability to move up to three Mods at a time from one piece of gear to another piece of gear at the same time. In order to take advantage of Tinkering, certain criteria needs to be met:

• Must be the same type of gear.
  
• Moving Mods from a weapon, to another weapon.
  
• Gear that the Mods are being moved to must be the same Chaos tier or higher than where the Mod is coming from.
  
• Moving a Mod from a Chaos III weapon has to be moved into a Chaos III or higher weapon.
  
• Cannot add Mods of the same type, but can override Mods of the same type.
  
  • A +6% Anti-Goblin Servo on one relic, can override a +5% Anti-Goblin Servo on another tier-equivalent relic.
    
  • Have the materials and currency to complete the transfer of Mods.

Materials are now found in Expeditions and Onslaught. They can also be bought and sold in Player Shops.

Tinkering allows you to continuously mix and match your Mods to create the build you enjoy the most. The amount of customization that Tinkering offers truly lets you play how you want. It doesn’t stop there. When combined with our new Upgrading and Evolving features, even more choices await you, even potentially choosing the look of the weapon you want!



Upgrading gear is something that’s been a standard feature of Dungeon Defenders II to get additional power out of the gear you find. But this is Protean Shift, so we’re UPRADING THE UPGRADE! Most gear now has the ability to be upgraded 10 times. The cost for upgrading is greatly reduced from what it previously was, but now requires you to use materials that you find throughout your journeys in Etheria or that you bought from other Defenders through Player Shops. If you have a non-legendary piece of gear, through the genius of Professor Proteus, you can Advance that gear to the next quality!



Remember that low quality flower staff we mentioned earlier? If you upgraded it to its highest level, you can now advance it to the next quality. All gear can now be upgraded from one quality to another, taking items from the lowly Worn quality all the way to Legendary status. This isn’t the only form of improving gear, Evolving allows even more power!



Evolving is icing on the gear permanence cake. Independent of an items quality tier, if it is upgraded to it’s maximum Upgrade level, it can be pushed to the next Chaos tier. This allows you to take even the first items you find in the campaign to be Evolved all the way to Chaos VIII strength! It’s all about choosing the gear that you want to keep with you.

Upgrading, Advancing, and Evolving applies to every piece of gear that drops — weapons, armor, and relics!

New materials are added to customize your gear. With the introduction of these materials, we lowered the currency cost of upgrading gear. In your inventory, these materials are included under the current “Materials” inventory sorting option. There are some mats that drop on every map, but then there are also map-type specific materials that drop too. Here’s where you can find the materials you need:

• Weapon Materials: Sewer Maps
  
• Helmet Materials: Castle Maps
  
• Chest Materials: Forest Maps
  
• Glove Materials: Town Maps
  
• Boot Materials: Ruins Maps
  
• Relic Materials: Dungeon Maps

Materials are shown on both the map listing and under the open sessions for specific maps. Don’t want to farm a specific map-type for a material you need? You can visit our Markets to find Player Shops selling the materials you need!

We’ve added additional ways for both new and veteran Defenders to fight off the evil forces that encroach on Etheria’s safety! Adventures are new ways for up and coming Defenders to fight their way through the Campaign, while Expeditions are replacing Trials and providing map choice where previously there wasn’t!

Adventures are aimed in giving new Defenders the choice of playing different stories after defeating Betsy. You can choose to take on the Bling King, or go knock down the Harbinger down a peg or two! Maybe you feel strong enough after beating Betsy, if you’re up for the challenge, you can go straight into Onslaught or Expeditions.


Map choice, map choice, MAP CHOICE!! Something many of you have wanted is finally here! The Chaos Trials are finished, and Defenders can now go on Expeditions through various Chaos difficulties, choosing to play whatever map you want. The choice is yours!


The Champion Score gating for various Expedition levels is different as well, they are now:

• Chaos II: 580
  
• Chaos III: 1050
  
• Chaos IV: 1740
  
• Chaos V: 2750
  
• Chaos VI: 3800
  
• Chaos VII: 5300

Expeditions also provide the ability to acquire different materials needed Upgrading, Advancing, Evolving, and Tinkering. As noted above, different specific materials drop depending on the map-type your playing. These materials are earned both as you play a map and as you achieve victory!

Gear is no longer magically locked to each Hero Deck. Professor Proteus slightly alleviated the restrictions that existed previously on gear. As a result, Player Shops and Markets are here!


All Defenders are now able to list their items for sale on their own personal Player Shops. Each Defender starts off with two slots to sell gear and can expand the amount of slots they have if they want to. Most items that have not been altered in some way (Upgraded, Advanced, Evolved, or Tinkered) are able to be added to your shop! You are not able to buy gear for a Chaos tier that you are not currently on (i.e. being Chaos III, you are not able to purchase Chaos V gear from other players). To make browsing easier, you can view player shops through the Player List in the Pause Menu, or by walking up to players in the Markets.

Markets are a new area for players to gather in order to browse Player Shops. Head on over to the War Table and browse the list of active Markets! Markets are themed for various types of items that can be sold, but you can freely sell any item of choice regardless of the Market you’re in. If you don’t see a Market of the item type you’re looking for, you can always just Quickmatch and it automatically creates one for you!

Our new Shard systems were primarily focused on giving players more choices with their Shards. For Shards that you don’t want to keep anymore, you can now Dust them to get a chance at more Shards of that type. For Shards that you feel have more value, we wanted to provide a system to Gild and upgrade them a little bit further and protect them from Ancient Power resets.

Shard Dusting
Shards are a great way to really increase the power of the Heroes you play! Some players enjoy playing on a few select Heroes, and you can get Shards you aren’t interested in using. Instead of selling Shards for a little gold, you now Dust them instead. This creates one Shard dust of it’s equivalent Chaos Tier. You can take 10 Shard Dust of the same tier, and visit the War Recruiter to purchase an additional Shard container similar to what you receive at the end of winning a map. This process is to offer an additional chance to get the Shards you want, while giving an additional function to the ones you do not.


Gilded Shards
With gear getting pushed past its limits and receiving some nice improvements, it’s only fitting that Shards receive similar treatment! Gilded Shards provide additional upgrade levels to squeeze out more power, but most of all they are immune to being reset when you Ancient Power. In order to gild a Shard, you need to upgrade one Shard to its maximum upgrade level. You then have the option to Gild it by selecting 10 Shards of the same type, regardless of upgrade level, to fuse into your fully upgraded Shard. This is a focus for end-game players to grab additional power in order to take on the challenges in Onslaught, and also protect Shards from being reset when attaining Ancient Power!

Professor Proteus is a man of intellect, sophistication, and style. In Protean Shift every hero is receiving their own special weapons, with their own special appearances! Some of these weapons not only look legendary, but contain legendary power in the form of unique Mods. These Mods are found on the Prestigious weapons gained from attaining Ancient Power!


Protean Weapons

We’re now also selling Proteus weapons that have unique models and affects. When killing an enemy with any of these weapons, they are shrunk into oblivion! These new Death Animation VFX are indicated by a skull and crossbones icon on the weapon tooltip. These items start at Campaign tier and are Legendary quality, allowing you to put three mods into them. They do require Upgrading, Advancing, and Evolving in order to reach higher tiers. These unique weapon models can also be bought and sold on the Player Shops as long as they haven’t been altered (Upgrading, Advancing, Evolving, or Tinkering).


With a lot of customization here, and a gigantic wave of changes to stats, there are some improvements to our Target Dummies. In the Town hub we expanded the size of our Target Dummy area by quite a lot. There are also a new type of Target Dummy: Aerial Target Dummies! These can be hit by any anti-air towers, so you can test the damage done by towers that you previously weren’t able to.

Aerial Target Dummies are also in your Private Taverns! You may also notice that there are some new Dummy names in the mix.

There’s a ton going on with the Protean Shift, and you’re going to notice a bunch of changes to your Heroes. We made sure that you are more or less as strong after Protean Shift as you were before it. As we mentioned earlier, base stats were raised and adjusted to compensate the removal of certain secondary stats. Here’s how things will transition as you load in with this expansion.

For the gear you are wearing before Protean Shift, the Primary and Secondary stats follow the conventions mentioned above after the release. Your gear should look like this:

• Weapons
  
  • Primary Stat: Hero Damage.
    
  • Secondary Stat: Whatever your highest secondary stat was previously between Ability Power, Armor, and Hero Health.
• Helmets, Chest, Gloves, Boots
  
  • Primary Stat: Armor
    
  • Secondary Stat: Whatever your highest secondary stat was previously between Ability Power, Hero Damage, and Hero Health.

Relics are all going to be uniform across the board as outlined above (Defense Power and Defense Health only, the primary and secondary versions dependent on if it’s a totem or not).

Your current gear receives Mods depending on its quality, as an additional compensation for removing secondary stats. You receive one Mod for Epic and Mythical gear, and two Mods for Legendary gear. The Mods that are put onto this gear cannot roll the highest roll possible, but are going to make you stronger regardless of the roll. Transferring also provides some diversity with the Mods provided to your current gear, as the ones you receive pull from 60%+ of the total Mods added in Protean Shift.

Every tower and Hero were affected by the changes brought in Protean Shift. As a result, base damage, speed, range, etc. were increased to compensate for the lack of additional secondary stats. Scaling was also greatly affected, meaning not only were the base stats increased, but also how much benefit a stat provides was also increased.

Writing the notes for all of these would have resulted in an encyclopedia, and it may have broke the forums. TL;DR things are stronger and you have the potential to be much, much stronger.

Shards follow the same idea as the Hero changes. While most shards remain the same, the amount of changes that Gilding offers affects every Shard. However, there are few notable Shards that have additional stats or were change to fit our new system (that we teased for a while):

• Earth Toss
  
  • Added increased Defense Range [100 - 280 (320 Gilded)]
• Corruption’s bargain
  
  • Added Ability Power [0 - 300 (420 Gilded)]
• Power Transfer
  
  • Now increases the Defense Critical Chance by [18% - 30% (38% Gilded)] and reduces Defense Power by -10%.

• Fixed an issue with Gorbstock not able to hit walls.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Abyss Lord's Direct Command was not dealing critical damage.
  
• Fixed an issue where one Deadly Strikes shard could be equipped to multiple defenses.
  
• Fixed an issue where mobs with the Frosty mutator were not dropping green mana.
  
• Fixed a bug where Hero Health was not maintaining the same ratio when changing equipment.
  
• Fixed an issue with Beacon of Storms and Beacon of Typhoons proccing when the Squire blocks melee or physical damage.
  
• Fixed an issue with UI overlaps when splitscreen users joined a session.
  
• Fixed an issue with additional pop-ups in the Emporium.
  
• Adjusted the orc miniboss name in Wave 2 of Greystone Plaza of the New User Experience.
  
• Fixed an issue with a huntress drap being destroyed in Greystone Plaza during New User Experience.
  
• Updated old consumables to award +20% critical damage and critical chance instead of previous values.
  
• Fixed an issue where tooltips occasionally stuck together.
  
• Fixed an issue with new players not being sent into New User Experience maps.
  
• Fixed an issue when trying to delete a hero that is assigned to your Hero Deck.
  
• Fixed an issue where Broomnado was slowing enemies that were immune to slows.
  
• Fixed a bug where EV2’s Cosmetic Manager lighting was darker than intended.
  
• Added a warning when Defenders are matchmaking into a tutorial level.
  
• Improved messaging on errors when not able to join a game mode that hasn’t been unlocked.
  
• Fixed an issue with long enemy spawn times on the first tutorial map.
  
• Clarified wording on the Serpent God’s Protection Shard.
  
• Fixed an issue with Lavamancer’s Maw Petrify Duration talent not working.
  
• Fixed an issue with the Hotsprings map on Floor 3 dropping a lot of sturdy or worn quality loot.

Weapon Mods of the same type on weapons are currently stacking for the Barbarian. This will be changed down the road, so that only elemental damage mods stack.

Check us out on social media for additional updates and game discussions with our awesome community:

• Twitter
  
• Facebook
  
• Discord
  
• Twitch

Protean Shift is a giant endeavor that the entire team hopes you enjoy. Thank you for defending Etheria with us, there’s only more to come. Stay tuned!

For Etheria!

The Dungeon Defenders II Team

Greetings Defenders,

It is time to finally announce the next expansion coming to Etheria — Dungeon Defenders II: Protean Shift! We’ve released information regarding this expansion and are ready to give a preview as to almost everything you can expect. The entire team has and still is working very hard to make sure this is a great experience for Defenders new and old. We’re going to cover some information posted in our DevLogs, as well as some new information, and how it all ties together. Let’s get to it!

This is our most foundational change in the update. When Protean Shift launches, you’ll notice that your gear’s stats looks much different than before. Our first change is making the damage from critical strikes scale off of the base damage for both your heroes and your towers. Critical Damage is no longer going to be a secondary stat, but is going to be a percentage increase that you can gain through Gear, Shards, and Ascension Levels. Because of the change to Critical Damage, the Critical Chance cap of 33% has been removed — the sky’s the limit now!

One of the goals of the Critical Damage change is to make damage more reliable. Critical Damage builds are still fun, but other playstyles should feel just as rewarding. Every hero and tower’s base damage has been increased to account for the changes made, making damage more consistent and allowing for even more unique builds!

Since we are changing how Critical Damage is understood, we decided to tackle another confusing area for players: Defense Speed. This stat is now a percentage instead of being numbers that go into the thousands. The change here allows players to understand exactly how much faster their defenses attack rate will increase.

This expansion really provides the opportunity to build how you want to, and gear is a huge reason. We wanted gear to feel more unique, instead of just giving you every stat whenever you received a legendary tier of gear. Now your gear and choices can reflect the kind of Defender you want to be.

Gear now has a primary stat and a secondary stat. For heroes, the stats vary depending on the piece of gear. On helmets, gloves, chest, and boots, the primary stat is Armor, and the secondary stat pulls from Health, Ability Power, or Hero Damage. On weapons, the primary stat is Hero Damage and the secondary stat can be Armor, Health, or Ability Power. As a reminder, base hero damage for their attacks and abilities was buffed to make sure your heroes feel comparably as powerful after Protean Shift releases compared to how powerful they currently are.

For towers, it varies as well. On totems, Defense Health is the primary stat and Defense Power is the secondary stat. Inversely on Medallions, Marks, and Orbs (if you still have any), Defense Power is the primary stat and Defense Health is the secondary stat. An additional reminder, we increased defenses base stats to try and retain the power your defenses currently possess. This leads us to M.O.D.S.

M.O.D.S.



Professor Proteus applied his inventive intellect to all of the gear in Etheria! Magically Offense/Defensive Subroutines (M.O.D.S. or even simpler — Mods) are what allow you to make your gear your own! Mods can do everything from normal stat increases (Defense Speed, Critical Damage, Critical Chance) to less normal bonuses like stun immunity on Defenses. They even offer new ways to combat your foes! Want to:

Have towers immune to Hex Thrower curses? You can do that.
Pierce a Shield Geodes shield? You can do that.
Make your traps, auras, and nodes, immune to Cyborks?! You can do that!

Mods are an additional property on gear, similar to Shards. Mods compliment Shards and also unlock in a similar fashion, based on the quality of gear, and start appearing on Uncommon quality gear:

• Uncommon: 1 Mod slot
  
• Epic: 2 Mod slots
  
• Mythical: 2 Mod slots
  
• Legendary: 3 Mod slots

This means that a Legendary piece of gear now has two stats, three Mods, and empowers three Shard slots, making them truly Legendary. This is just the tip of the iceberg! Over 120 Mods are here to give you the chance to defend Etheria the way you want to. Some of these Mods are the result of community feedback as a unique and engaging way of tackling challenges set before you, the Defenders of Etheria.

Mods are something Professor Proteus added to gear, and what good would Mods be if you couldn’t modify them? That’s where Tinkering comes into the mix! Tinkering is the ability to move up to three Mods at a time from one piece of gear to another piece of the same type and Chaos tier or higher. This means that Mods on Chaos VII weapons can only be moved to another Chaos VII weapon, from one Chaos III helmet to another Chaos III (or higher) helmet, and so on. Once you transfer Mods from one piece of gear to another, the original piece is destroyed in the process.

Tinkering allows you to continuously mix and match your Mods to create the build you enjoy the most. The amount of customization that Tinkering offers truly lets you play how you want. It doesn’t stop there. When combined with our new Upgrading and Evolving features, even more choices await you, even potentially choosing the look of the weapon you want!

Upgrading
Upgrading is a feature that many of you are well acquainted with, it’s the best way to squeeze extra power out of your gear. But this is Protean Shift, so it’s time to UPGRADE THE UPGRADE! You no longer max upgrade a piece of gear and wait for another piece of gear that’s a higher quality and/or Chaos tier to replace it. You can take that gear, and through the genius of Prof. Proteus, Advance that gear to the next tier!



Advancing
Have an Uncommon piece of gear with the stats you want early on? You can now upgrade that piece to its max level and once it’s maxed, you can Advance that piece of gear into Epic quality. The same can be done to go from Epic to Mythical, and from Mythical to Legendary. This isn’t the only form of improving your gear, which is where Evolving comes in!



Evolving
Evolving is icing on the gear permanence cake. Regardless of a piece of gear’s quality tier, you can choose to Evolve it to bring it through the various Chaos levels. With Evolving you can now choose to push a sword that you found in Chaos II all the way up to Chaos VII, and beyond!



Upgrading, Advancing, and Evolving applies to every piece of gear that drops — weapons, armor, and relics!

Adventures
We’re adding in additional ways for both new and veteran Defenders to play! The Campaign is now different than many of you experienced in the past. After completing the Campaign, Defenders can now take on Adventures! These let you choose specific side stories to progress and prepare for the challenges that await you in Expeditions, Onslaught, Mastery, and Incursions provide.

Expeditions
Map choice, map choice, MAP CHOICE! Something many have wanted is now here. The Chaos Trials are finished, and Defenders can now go on Expeditions throughout various Chaos difficulties. Do you have one favorite map to play, and just want to play that one as you progress through different Chaos difficulties? Now you can!

Expeditions also provide the ability to acquire different materials needed for new systems being added, such as Evolving and Tinkering. Different types of maps drop different specific materials as you play through a map and as you complete them. You can choose to farm for a specific material on a specific map, or play random maps that offer more materials. These materials are earned as you play a map and when victory is yours!

Shard Dusting
Shards are a great way to really increase the power of the heroes you play. Some players enjoy playing only a few select hero, so it can be a real bummer if you get Shards for heroes that don’t fit your play style. Now you can take any unwanted shards and break them down into dust through Shard Dusting. You can take the Shard Dust from unwanted shards and trade them in for Chaos equivalent Shard Packs to have another try at getting the shard you want. You can use this process to help work towards getting the shards

Gilded Shards
All our gear is getting the ability to be pushed past its limits, so it’s only fitting that Shards get the ability to as well. When you Gild Shards, you combine Shards of the same kind to unlock additional upgrade levels. This is a focus for end-game players to grab additional power in order to take on the challenges that Onslaught, and also protect their shards from being reset when attaining Ancient Power!




Professor Proteus is a man of intellect, sophistication, and style. In Protean Shift every hero is receiving their own special weapons, with their own special appearances! Some of these weapons not only look legendary, but contain legendary power in the form of unique Mods. These Mods are found on the Prestigious weapons gained from attaining Ancient Power, though that’s not the only way to get them!

In Protean Shift, gear is no longer magically locked to each Hero Deck. Professor Proteus has slightly alleviated the restrictions that existed previously.

All Defenders will be able to list their items for sale on their own personal Player Shops. Most items that have not been altered in some way (think Upgraded/Evolved/etc.) will be available to post on your shop! You will be able to browse all the Player Shops from the Player List on the Pause Menu. Feel free to shop to your heart's content!



In addition to creating your own Shop, you’ll be able to enter the new Markets. From the War Table, you can browse lists of open Markets and choose which to join. Markets are themed for the various types of items that can be sold, but you can still freely sell any item of your choice while you’re there. If you don’t see a Market of the item type that you’re looking for, you can always just Quickmatch and it will automatically create one for you!

We’ve been spilling the beans for a while now, and there’s one last bean that we have to spill — the release date. Dungeon Defenders II: Protean Shift is releasing on June 19th on PlayStation 4, Steam, and Xbox One! This release is very close to one year since we’ve released and there’s more to come.

Check us out on social media for additional updates and game discussions with our awesome community:

• Twitter
  
• Facebook
  
• Discord
  
• Twitch

We’ve got one more Devstream to show off more stuff coming with Dungeon Defenders II: Protean Shift. Thank you for defending Etheria with us, there’s only more to come. Stay tuned!

For Etheria!

The Dungeon Defenders II Team

Greetings Defenders,

The update is coming along smoothly and lots of work is being done as we speak. We released two DevLogs over the past two weeks, and there’s one more coming, but we didn’t want to leave a week without any beans spilling, so we’re going to spill a couple today. Just as an extra note, some of the terms discussed here and any content is still subject to change. Let’s go!

Gear and stat changes affect the entire game, meaning Shards are also affected. With the upcoming update, just about every Shard is going to change as a result (get ready for probably our longest patch notes ever). They should more or less retain their same power, but because of the stat changes and base damage increase on towers, you may find some Shards way more useful than before! There’s also an additional feature being added that affects Shards, what we’re currently calling Shard Dusting.

Shard Dusting
While a lot of Shards are gaining additional strength or coming into the spotlight because of tower/gear changes, there are many different Shards in the game. Very few people utilize all the Shards that drop. Some people like playing with the base four heroes and focus on Shards for them, and some like using just the Mystic and the Lavamancer. Getting Shards for the heroes you don’t use can sometimes feel like you aren’t working towards improving your own unique build. With Shard Dusting, you can now find a utility for unwanted Shards instead of just selling them for little gold.

Taking the Shards you do not want, and deconstructing them into dust, it now allows you to acquire another chance at getting a Shard you want. For a set amount of dust, you are able to go to our Shard vendor and trade your dust for another Shard container that contains a random Shard from the appropriate Chaos tier. This a feature the community asked for, and we’re here to deliver! Getting multiples of the same Shards also has an advantage as well.

Gilded Shards
Gear is getting a major overhaul and additional features to increase its power, we wanted to give Shards some attention as well. With this next update, the Shards (both wanted and unwanted) you find are going to possess more utility than they currently do. Gilded Shards are Shards whose power pushes past the current limits. When gilding a Shard, they gain increased upgrade levels, increasing their power. That’s not the only bonus — Gilded Shards do not get reset when you attain Ancient Power, alleviating some of the currency costs that come with resetting!

Now you might be thinking, “Lawlta, how do I gild my Shards?”, and that’s a great question. Gilded Shards come from combining a specific number of the same Shard. We’re not announcing any specific numbers yet, but we want to make sure this feature feels good to use, and are getting great feedback from our RPG and RQA testers. The goal for this is to allow players who are pushing in end game Onslaught to increase the power of their favorite and/or most used shards. This is our first step towards adding more goals for end game players that have long lasting impact on their power.
New Weapon Models

Professor Proteus is a man of intellect and sophistication, but also a man of style. There are more weapon models coming for every weapon type this update, and they may be attained in a special way. Here’s a sneak peek of what our artists created:



2D Concept Art by Zack Smith


3D Models by Zack Smith

There are more weapons coming, this is just a sneak peek of the awesome ones we are introducing into this update!

The beans continue to flow! The systems discussed here build upon all of the things we discussed in the previous DevLogs. Believe it or not (actually just believe it), there’s even MORE coming!

The next DevLog is going to be a summation of everything we put out so far, as well as a feature that brings together a lot of the features revealed in recent weeks. There may also be a release date in there that’s sooner than you (don’t) think. It’s going to be our last DevLog before we release the Patch Novel™ (calling them notes doesn’t capture just how gigantic that post is going to be).

A lot of the changes that are coming give us a lot to create additional future content. Many of the changes within this huge update, including Shard Dusting, are a result of community feedback on what Defenders want. The feedback all of you provide is incredibly important. Game development is a very arduous process, and at times can feel like we aren’t listening if the changes you want are not released very quickly. These changes (and ones coming in future updates) have a heavy community influence to them. You all are great at providing constructive feedback and it helps us make sure the additions we make are something you enjoy! :)
If you want an early look (as well as helping us polish things before release), our testing groups are just for you! There’s so much coming, and every bit helps to make this expansive update great.

Check us out on social media for additional updates and game discussions with our awesome community:

• Twitter
  
• Facebook
  
• Discord
  
• Twitch

There’s even more information coming next week. We’re really excited to share the last beans of this update, and hope you enjoy what’s coming. Stay tuned!

For Etheria!

The Dungeon Defenders II Team

A red spaceship has arrived in Etheria! Dragonfall guards have questioned a small robot that says his name is “Protobot.” After a brief examination, Protobot hands a mysterious letter to the guards. Let’s open it and see what it says:

Greetings Defenders!

I thought everyone could benefit from one of my more recent discoveries that I’ve made in my research, my new Shrink-o-matizing technology! It really was just a simple matter of combining a crystal core with the matter quantizing array. This allows all sorts of items and materials to be stored at a much smaller size than before! This is only one of the many new item transmorphications that I plan on making.

I do hope that Protobot is in good health and did not damage anything upon his arrival. He’s had some slight malfunctions in his navigational subroutines recently, but his Shrink-o-matizer is in perfect condition! You can trust your items to be protected and stored properly upon the Vault Ship.

I can’t wait to arrive in Dragonfall to share all of my latest research with all of you. I simply was held up making some last minute adjustments to my latest creation, the Robo-witch Prime! Or was it Mecha-witch? Gunda-witch? Don’t worry, I’ll figure out what I’m calling it and head right over! I can’t wait to share all my latest findings with everyone! The Old Ones won’t know what hit them!

Sincerely,

Professor Sebastian Proteus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_00szBO9u7o
Patch 2.4 crash landed into the Dragonfall Marketplace today and is now live! This patch brings a highly requested feature in the form of a shiny spaceship — The Sky City Bank! With the bank’s arrival come some tremendous improvements to load times, optimizations, and bug fixes. Let’s get into it!


The Sky City Bank is now available! This futuristic bank is located directly behind the Emporium in Town, or next to the training dummies in your Private Tavern. The bank is used to store items that you want to hold onto, but don’t necessarily need on your journeys throughout Etheria.

For starters, every player gets at least one Bank Vault for free right when they login. This means if you only have the default inventory space, you now have that same default inventory space AND a Bank Vault upon logging in!

For people that purchased the old Inventory Packs or the Bag Booster Pack are going to notice a shift in their inventory. Bags obtained through those packs become Bank Vaults with this patch. Previously it confused players when they saw other players with ten or eleven bags, when they could only have eight. Because of this, we are standardizing inventory bags.

The change looks like this:

Pre-Patch 2.4

• 8-11 Possible Maximum Inventory Bags
  
• 0 Bank Vaults

Post-Patch 2.4

• 8 Possible Maximum Inventory Bags
  
• 12 Bank Vaults

To celebrate the Sky City Bank’s arrival, we are offering a FREE bundle that you can redeem from the in-game shop for 0 Gems. This bundle awards:

• One additional Bank Vault!
  
• Shutter Shades Flair!

By redeeming the free bundle, you are able to start off Patch 2.4 with at least two free Bank Vaults! This bundle is available for two weeks, so grab it while it’s here!


This patch brings the ability to split stackable items into different stacks and amounts. For instance, if there’s a stack of 99 pet food in your inventory, you can now break it down into two or more stacks of whatever size you choose. Want to keep some items on you, but store the rest of the stack in the bank? Now you can do that! Stacks on stacks on stacks.

Now that the Sky City Bank is open for business, moving items quickly to the bank is a must. You can now move an entire bag full of items with one button press. The “Transfer All” button moves all non-locked items in the bag you currently have selected into the Bank Vault that you have selected. You can move Locked Items as well, they are just done individually. “Transfer All” also automatically stacks any stackable items so you don’t have to!

Patch 2.4 contains an emphasis on inventories. Our Lead Programmer looked into ways our inventories could be better to really add some “oomph” to this patch. After investigating how profiles saved, loaded, and handled inventories, we made a lot of improvements when loading into any part of the game! Some players are going to notice drastic load time decreases, while others may notice slightly quicker loads.

Pets

• When at the Hatchery, eggs can be hatched directly. No more drag and dropping or incubating!

Visuals

• Tower Inspect UI updated for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One (PC already has this).
  
• Zapper Kobold Flier now has a red outline.
  
• Made Lavamancer Weapon drops larger, something hot now looks cooler.
  
• Mana Node received some visual improvements.
  
• Slight tweaks to some of the Barbarian’s Accessories.
  
• Minor adjustments to the Barbarian’s whirlwind.
  
• Blacksmith’s shop no longer has a confirmation pop-up for purchases.
  
• War Table Cybork info now includes that they disable nodes.
  
• Bug reporting page received updated buttons.

Audio

• New audio cue for Wave Complete!
  
• Betsy fight sequence in Dragonfall Bazaar received updated sound cues.
  
• Added and improved on Berserker Orcs during the Glitterhelm matinee.

Dryad

• Corrupt Form
  
  • When building a tower in Corrupt Form, towers now gain the Corrupt benefits when placed.

• Slime Pit Tower
  
  • No longer slow enemies that are immune to slow. Berserker orcs aren’t afraid of slimes!

Huntress

• Shards
  
  • Explosive Poison
    
    • The shard is now working correctly, spreading poison if a poisoned enemy dies.

Shards

• Inspiration
  
  • Can no longer be equipped to the Abyss Lord or EV2

• Fixed an issue where EV2’s Proton Charge could produce higher than intended damage while gaining zero heat.
  
• Fixed an issue with the Barbarian’s Leap preventing resource decay.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Flamethrower Tower’s VFX did not get larger when defense range was increased.
  
• Fixed an issue where Auto-Equip Relics did not work on the first press.
  
• Fixed an issue where Chaos 3 Shard Packs were not on the Emporium.
  
• Fixed an issue when comparing equipment on the Squire.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Barbarian could get out of bounds in The Throne Room.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Sub-Cores are on the incorrect sides in The Throne Room.
  
• Adjusted the Dryad Starfall resource cost so it no longer overlaps.
  
• Fixed an issue that allowed parties to play the tutorial maps (we are looking into letting parties into these maps down the road).
  
• Fixed an issue that caused an infinite loading screen. Please let us know if you experience them after this update.
  
• Removed the ability to auto-equip when in the Portal.
  
• Fixed a bug where multiple towers could be placed simultaneously. May look into adding a stable version of this down the road.
  
• Fixed an issue where several weapons were not consistently dropping in the world without their vfx visible.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Lavamancer VFX would appear on some maps when using the Barbarian Leap.
  
• Fixed an issue where the champion crowns were not properly rotated on hero cards.
  
• Updated an issue where golden eggs would show up as a regular egg in several places.
  
• Fixed an issue where purchasing the last item in the list from the Blacksmith or Relic Hunter shop using a controller causes the list to lose focus.
  
• Fixed an issue where several items in the blacksmith shop were displaying improperly.
  
• Fixed an issue where item comparison was not working for equipped items.
  
• Removed references to the shards being equipped on the sell all message.
  
• Equippable is now spelled correctly in the shard folder when you have no shards available for the gear slot. Stay in school kids.
  
• Removed a reference to the old pet bag when trying to hatch an egg with a full inventory.
  
• Fixed a visual issue where a large number of shards displayed the current upgrade level is in the wrong location on the tooltip.
  
• Quest Complete pop-up will now say Daily Mission completed when completing a Daily Mission.
  
• Attempting to equip a shard to an invalid tower slot throws either unknown error, or no error. Now has a valid error string.
  
• Fixed an issue on XB1 where sub-core icons were not being removed after losing a sub-core.

The Sky City Bank is the first arrival for something much larger coming to Etheria. Over the next couple months we are going to be actively discussing the new features coming with our next expansive update. For more information sources as we post updates, be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter (doing so also gets you the Pirate Monk and Academy Apprentice skins for free):

• Twitter
  
• Facebook
  
• Discord

We’re still tinkering away to get some gigantic changes to Dungeon Defenders II that we think you’re really going to enjoy. More information coming soon!

For Etheria!

The Dungeon Defenders II Team