Witching Stone news & patch notes

• Fixed a bug where the magic event in Act 2 as Aerfen caused a console pop.
• Fixed a bug where the magic event in Act 2 as Pwca had no dialog.
• Fixed a bug where Parting Gift, when viewed on an enemy, added weird additional subtips.

!! Warning !!

Story

More Toys

New Quests

Potions

Modifiers, Rerolls and Collection

• By default, rerolls are reset when defeating a boss
• By default, modifiers just have one completion state, rather than per character
• In the options you can give yourself infinite rerolls
  • This will always give the sussy dagger on the victory screen
• Rerolling Modifiers will blacklist Modifiers you have previously seen.
  • Resets with your reroll count or, if you’re using infinite rerolls, after seeing every modifier once.
• In options you can choose to show modifier completion by character instead
• Added 4 new modifiers
• Modifiers that fully heal after fights used to hide camps. The camps now show anyway so you can see story sequences.
• +1 enemy damage modifier rank increased from 2 to 3
• “Half health but heal after each battle modifier” rank increased from 0 to 1

Clarity and Polish

• You can now completely skip your turn. This needs to be enabled in options as it’s a bit of a trap for new players, but it can be useful in some scenarios.
• Collection screen now shows if Spells are offensive or defensive.
• Collection screen shows if Badges are limited to certain characters (both locked and unlocked state)
  • This is only for one Badge, which was added this update
• The results screen background is lighter so the loading screen wipe is less weird looking.
• Quests that unlock Spell Sets and Badges will now show those Spells and Badges.
• Increased text size and spacing in some places. The default tight text is to try and fit a novella onto the tiny Spell widgets. Honestly, I kind of regret not just making Spell details a giant pop-up instead… but it’s too late to change that now. People would be rioting in the streets.
• The descent animation after finishing an act is quicker and can be skipped.
• In combat, if path entry is stopped because of the End Path keyword, this is now indicated above the mana bar. If it’s because the Paralyze Spell status added the keyword, then that is called out instead.
• In combat, the cross hatching that shows which stones cannot be accessed from the current path now takes into account any status effects that make cells inaccessible.
• If enemies have an innate status effect, the application VFX will play before the player’s turn.
• The Resilient status now only turns a health bar blue when maxed out and negating damage.
• The Empower status now correctly plays the correct purple VFX, rather than the green Strength one.
• Spell scaling effects (ex: deal +1 for each poison on enemies) are displayed in a different colour to Spell actions.
• Steel keyword has been removed and its effect is just inlined into the Spell like other scaling effects..
• Added additional decoration onto Spells purchased at Event Shops
• Manifold’s effect now fires the Copying Spell Particles™ from the spell and not the enemy target.
• The Muddled spell status now works by adding the Muddle keyword to Spells, making it more consistent.
• Bramble Badge renamed Briar to keep it legally distinct from the Spell of the same name
• Arawn’s Magic Shield has a yellow outline like Resilient. I guess this is the new visual language for conditional invincibility.
• Aspect of Arawn is blue with some particles to try and clarify they are not the real deal

Balance Changes

• More enemy attacks have keywords like Aimless and Barrage.
• Morte never opens with their Hex attack.
• Stones added to the board can now go into empty space (they will still ignore the player path, this is mostly so you can add stones after Tabula Rasa)
• Spells with the Life Tap keyword no longer have weird hand-picked exceptions that let “attack spell only” badges work on them.
• Ceremonial Dagger Badge now applies a keyword called Simplify that reduces cast sequences by 1, rather than doing it directly, to play nice with the new Reagent keyword.
• Harpoon Badge now adds 2 damage rather than True Strike
• Soap Badge damage decreased to 1 damage per bubble with a damage cap of 10
• Arcane Retain (Patchouli Badge) now has a 50% chance to keep any stone, rather than a 100% chance to keep just regular stones.
• Grabber Badge has gained Longshot and 1 damage
• Harpoon Badge now has Cruel instead of Longshot
• Gladiator Helm damage modifier removed (previously -25%)
• Playing Card Badge increases damage by 25% rather than 150% and adds SuperFlux rather than Flux
• The keywords Flux and SuperFlux now add a random variance between plus or minus 3 from the current value (minimum 0) rather from 1 to the current value. SuperFlux still won’t apply to scaling values like “+X damage for each Spell cast.”
• Corrupted spells use Flux under the hood so their damage is in a tighter range
• Corrupted spells no longer have True Strike and can be mitigated entirely if hitting into Plate or an emptied Resilient
• All spells that damage the caster have the new Stoic keyword, which prevents the damage value from being changed by status effects

Spell Changes

• Gwen’s Fire Bolt Spell no longer exists.
• Gwen’s Sonic damage is now 3 rather than 5, and has Pierce, which will hit enemies behind
• Gwen’s Chaff deals 6 damage base rather than 4 and removes all Jammers
• Ceridwen’s Manifold’s effect, copying itself over exhausted Spells, will not consider the casting Spell as a target.
• Ceridwen’s Absorb spell now deals 5 damage instead of 3, has the Ally keyword (targets your summons only), and Mega Refresh keyword (defeating a target removes Cooldown and Exhaust from all Spells)
• Ceridwen’s Drain spell is now called Mercurial
• Ceridwen’s Mercurial spell no longer has DoubleCast (see SuperFlux changes)
• Ceridwen’s Reap no longer has a limit on Soul Gems
• Ceridwen’s Pact also adds 2 Power
• Ceridwen’s Rite no longer adds Power, but makes the next spell have Double Cast
• Ceridwen summons that appear behind her have their health raised to 5 (act 1) or 6
• Aerfen’s Berserk rage bonus x3 instead of x2
• Aerfen’s Violence rage bonus x3 instead of x2
• Aerfen’s Defiance has 4 base damage and Pierce
• Aerfen’s Tackle reworked to 3 damage, 4 stones, Haymaker and Pierce
• Blodeuwedd’s second starting spells have changed.
• Blodeuwedd’s Bramble and Synthesis both have one less stone.
• Blodeuwedd’s Spring now gives 1 Strength and Wild instead of Exhaust
• Blodeuwedd’s Thorned Rose and Bush spells both have Wild instead of Exhaust
• Blodeuwedd’s Thorned Rose and Bush summons heal 3 and 1 respectively each turn.
• Arawn’s Transmute has swapped a Corrupt Stone for a blue stone
• Arawn’s Chaos Bolt deals 2-8 damage rather than 1-8 (see Flux changes)
• Arawn’s Corruption has the Corrupt Stone placed at the front.
• Arawn’s Accord now has SuperFlux and gives 0-3 Power instead of 2
• Arawn’s Bleak has SuperFlux instead of Pain
• Arawn’s Humble lost a stone and is no longer 5 damage, Engage, Giantslayer. Instead it is 6 damage, AutoFirst, Barrage, Exhaust
• Arawn’s Famine is now 0-6 damage and 0-5 leech, rather than 1-6 and 1-4 (see SuperFlux changes)

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug where the map could place the boss right next to the entrance on cramped maps
• Fixed a bug where hitting for zero damage with Lifetap caused a block icon to appear with no value.
• Fixed a bug where status effects were not factored into spells that use enemy damage (ex: Defiance)

Future Updates

Major Update! Story!

Story

More Toys

New Quests

Potions

Modifiers, Rerolls and Collection

• By default, rerolls are reset when defeating a boss
• By default, modifiers just have one completion state, rather than per character
• In the options you can give yourself infinite rerolls
  • This will always give the sussy dagger on the victory screen
• Rerolling Modifiers will blacklist Modifiers you have previously seen.
  • Resets with your reroll count or, if you’re using infinite rerolls, after seeing every modifier once.
• In options you can choose to show modifier completion by character instead
• Added 4 new modifiers
• Modifiers that fully heal after fights used to hide camps. The camps now show anyway so you can see story sequences.
• +1 enemy damage modifier rank increased from 2 to 3
• “Half health but heal after each battle modifier” rank increased from 0 to 1

Clarity and Polish

• You can now completely skip your turn. This needs to be enabled in options as it’s a bit of a trap for new players, but it can be useful in some scenarios.
• Collection screen now shows if Spells are offensive or defensive.
• Collection screen shows if Badges are limited to certain characters (both locked and unlocked state)
  • This is only for one Badge, which was added this update
• The results screen background is lighter so the loading screen wipe is less weird looking.
• Quests that unlock Spell Sets and Badges will now show those Spells and Badges.
• Increased text size and spacing in some places. The default tight text is to try and fit a novella onto the tiny Spell widgets. Honestly, I kind of regret not just making Spell details a giant pop-up instead… but it’s too late to change that now. People would be rioting in the streets.
• The descent animation after finishing an act is quicker and can be skipped.
• In combat, if path entry is stopped because of the End Path keyword, this is now indicated above the mana bar. If it’s because the Paralyze Spell status added the keyword, then that is called out instead.
• In combat, the cross hatching that shows which stones cannot be accessed from the current path now takes into account any status effects that make cells inaccessible.
• If enemies have an innate status effect, the application VFX will play before the player’s turn.
• The Resilient status now only turns a health bar blue when maxed out and negating damage.
• The Empower status now correctly plays the correct purple VFX, rather than the green Strength one.
• Spell scaling effects (ex: deal +1 for each poison on enemies) are displayed in a different colour to Spell actions.
• Steel keyword has been removed and its effect is just inlined into the Spell like other scaling effects..
• Added additional decoration onto Spells purchased at Event Shops
• Manifold’s effect now fires the Copying Spell Particles™ from the spell and not the enemy target.
• The Muddled spell status now works by adding the Muddle keyword to Spells, making it more consistent.
• Bramble Badge renamed Briar to keep it legally distinct from the Spell of the same name
• Arawn’s Magic Shield has a yellow outline like Resilient. I guess this is the new visual language for conditional invincibility.
• Aspect of Arawn is blue with some particles to try and clarify they are not the real deal

Balance Changes

• More enemy attacks have keywords like Aimless and Barrage.
• Morte never opens with their Hex attack.
• Stones added to the board can now go into empty space (they will still ignore the player path, this is mostly so you can add stones after Tabula Rasa)
• Spells with the Life Tap keyword no longer have weird hand-picked exceptions that let “attack spell only” badges work on them.
• Ceremonial Dagger Badge now applies a keyword called Simplify that reduces cast sequences by 1, rather than doing it directly, to play nice with the new Reagent keyword.
• Harpoon Badge now adds 2 damage rather than True Strike
• Soap Badge damage decreased to 1 damage per bubble with a damage cap of 10
• Arcane Retain (Patchouli Badge) now has a 50% chance to keep any stone, rather than a 100% chance to keep just regular stones.
• Grabber Badge has gained Longshot and 1 damage
• Harpoon Badge now has Cruel instead of Longshot
• Gladiator Helm damage modifier removed (previously -25%)
• Playing Card Badge increases damage by 25% rather than 150% and adds SuperFlux rather than Flux
• The keywords Flux and SuperFlux now add a random variance between plus or minus 3 from the current value (minimum 0) rather from 1 to the current value. SuperFlux still won’t apply to scaling values like “+X damage for each Spell cast.”
• Corrupted spells use Flux under the hood so their damage is in a tighter range
• Corrupted spells no longer have True Strike and can be mitigated entirely if hitting into Plate or an emptied Resilient

Spell Changes

• Gwen’s Fire Bolt Spell no longer exists.
• Gwen’s Sonic damage is now 3 rather than 5, and has Pierce, which will hit enemies behind
• Gwen’s Chaff deals 6 damage base rather than 4 and removes all Jammers
• Ceridwen’s Manifold’s effect, copying itself over exhausted Spells, will not consider the casting Spell as a target.
• Ceridwen’s Absorb spell now deals 5 damage instead of 3, has the Ally keyword (targets your summons only), and Mega Refresh keyword (defeating a target removes Cooldown and Exhaust from all Spells)
• Ceridwen’s Drain spell is now called Mercurial
• Ceridwen’s Mercurial spell no longer has DoubleCast (see SuperFlux changes)
• Ceridwen’s Reap no longer has a limit on Soul Gems
• Ceridwen’s Pact also adds 2 Power
• Ceridwen’s Rite no longer adds Power, but makes the next spell have Double Cast
• Ceridwen summons that appear behind her have their health raised to 5 (act 1) or 6
• Aerfen’s Berserk rage bonus x3 instead of x2
• Aerfen’s Violence rage bonus x3 instead of x2
• Aerfen’s Defiance has 4 base damage and Pierce
• Aerfen’s Tackle reworked to 3 damage, 4 stones, Haymaker and Pierce
• Blodeuwedd’s second starting spells have changed.
• Blodeuwedd’s Bramble and Synthesis both have one less stone.
• Blodeuwedd’s Spring now gives 1 Strength and Wild instead of Exhaust
• Blodeuwedd’s Thorned Rose and Bush spells both have Wild instead of Exhaust
• Blodeuwedd’s Thorned Rose and Bush summons heal 3 and 1 respectively each turn.
• Arawn’s Transmute has swapped a Corrupt Stone for a blue stone
• Arawn’s Chaos Bolt deals 2-8 damage rather than 1-8 (see Flux changes)
• Arawn’s Corruption has the Corrupt Stone placed at the front.
• Arawn’s Accord now has SuperFlux and gives 0-3 Power instead of 2
• Arawn’s Bleak has SuperFlux instead of Pain
• Arawn’s Humble lost a stone and is no longer 5 damage, Engage, Giantslayer. Instead it is 6 damage, AutoFirst, Barrage, Exhaust
• Arawn’s Famine is now 0-6 damage and 0-5 leech, rather than 1-6 and 1-4 (see SuperFlux changes)
• All spells that damage the caster have the new Stoic keyword, which prevents the damage value from being changed by status effects

• Fixed a bug where the map could place the boss right next to the entrance on cramped maps
• Fixed a bug where hitting for zero damage with Lifetap caused a block icon to appear with no value.
• Fixed a bug where status effects were not factored into spells that use enemy damage (ex: Defiance)

Story

Pwca, Blodeuwedd and Arawn Quests

Modifier Rerolls

Per-Character Modifier Completion Tracking

Postmortem

• Witching Stone Postmortem

Content Goals

Flux

• Fixed a crash when Scrying with some Modifiers enabled
• Fixed a crash when hitting the inventory button while entering combat
• Ceridwen's Engine spell is no longer considered a safe starting spell for Daily Challenges
• Spells with Repeat will not recast if they lose the keyword
• If Pristine fails it will try a best fit instead of restarting
• Evasion no longer prevents entity status effects from applying

Event Shop

Cursed Badges

New Enemies

New Modifiers and That Secret Quest

Balance Changes

• Leaf Cutter damage increased from 1 to 2
• Soul Cannon damage increased from 0 to 2
• Cyhyraeth now adds Freecast to all Soul Gems rather than 2
• Nemesis applies 2 Vulnerable rather than 1
• Rite now gives 2 Power instead of Healing 2
• Golem has more health, an extra point of damage, applies 2 vulnerable and swings twice when applying paralyse in phase 2
• Scaven now swings twice during one of his attacks
• Cleaning Droid has a new attack
• Gachapon Badge now only appears as part of an Event. A new Soap Badge occupies its slot in Act 2 and replaces the Gachapon Badge quest. If you have already unlocked Gachapon Badge then this quest will be unlocked too.
• Dagger Badge has also been moved into an Event.
• Scary Book Badge now has Cursed and +1 to all values (in addition to +50% damage, Pain)
• Buttercup and Egg Badges now add Priority. Priority makes a Spell always cast first when there is a conflict.
• Added a new status, Resilient, to Pale Adder. This caps how much damage they can take in a single turn. This is considered a defensive buff so is ignored by True Strike.
• Devour Badge now animates in real-time even if the game is sped up
• The sequence for Magic Shell should never be three of the same Stone

• Pwca’s purchasable stones are now 5 acorns instead of 3

Bug Fixes and Clarity

• Modifiers that add Badges now show what the Badge does in the tooltip.
• Rage status has “Also, after taking a hit:” added to the description to make it clearer when the Empower buff is applied.
• Timeline Spells and Stone effects go black once cast
• Timeline groups have a “?” icon to help convey they are randomly cast
• Badge limitations such as “Req Attack Spell” are always written into the description
• Stones that will cause you to take damage if left *uncleared* will emit particles
• Fixed a bug where Modifier completion ribbons could be overwritten with a weaker state
• Fixed a bug where bat enemies refused to do a basic attack on turn 1
• Fixed a bug where the Map tutorial listed Events that do not exist (by adding them)
• Fixed a bug where Witch Bolt would show up in the Shop for characters who cannot reasonably create Soul Gems
• Fixed a bug where Mother ignored the Hook keyword
• Fixed a graphical glitch where purchased items in the shop would sometimes draw over remaining items on other tabs
• Fixed a bug where Muddle would ignore cast sequence length changes from Ritual, Ceremonial Dagger, Polished Gem and Complicate
• Fixed a bug where map generation liked to put Camps next to each other in Act 3.

Magic Shell

• Enemy intent tooltip will not obscure the cast sequence if it exists
• When the status effect is gained, the stone sequence animates in
• The stone sequence shows cast progress similar to Spells

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug where Pwca with the extra Spell modifier did not get the full loot selection in Act 4
• Fixed a bug where modifiers that increase enemy health and damage applied to player summons
• Fixed a bug where Drosera would sometimes activate even if cleared with a Spell
• Fixed a bug where stone status effects would sometimes inherit scaling from their owner
• Fixed a bug where opening the inventory while moving could lock you in movement state forever. Also, trying to access the inventory while moving will now try to cancel the path and open it.
• Fixed a bug where right click would not leave the credits screen

Other Changes

• Version number is now shown on the title screen
• Character select screen animates in much faster

• "Shop sells items from the next Act" modifier now hopefully works as intended.
• Spells that apply a status effect to a limited number of stones within a group will indicate the exact number (Ex: Adds Freecast to 2x Daggers)
• Decay keyword now applies to scaling effects (ex: Earthquake, Battenberg)
• In-combat sequences that change the game speed will restore it a bit sooner.
• Purchased items now leave behind a slightly different graphic
• When summoned Blodeuwedd will pick the first empty slot and won’t cause entities to move

• Chance for a shop item to be form another character increased from 15% to 33%

Daily Challenges!

The Gang's All Here

Pwca Stone Shop

Scrying Is Free

Balance Changes

• Modifier feature is now unlocked after meeting 3 bosses rather than 5
• When a modifier removes a map node it is less likely to place a camp in a dead-end
• Stones created by Spells will not deprioritise replacing Jammers, Corruption and Drosera
• Incoming stone status effects will continue to prioritise stones that do not already have a status, but if forced they will replace an existing effect instead of doing nothing
• Player character will heal after defeating Arawn
• M.O.T.H.E.R. Medical Drone base damage down from 4 to 2
• Warmech self-heal down from 10 to 5
• Arawn casts anti-magic shield last in sequence
• Ice and Fire Elementals won’t sync their attacks and attack lowered from 5 to 3
• Cleaning Droid base damage down from 6 to 4
• Sprout Badge now adds +0 damage allowing the recipient to scale
• Sprout Badge has no maximum value
• Chaff Spell now has a normal cast sequence and deals +1 damage for each Jammer on the board
• Tantrum Spell is now 0 damage with no Pain keyword
• Pact Spell damage down from 3 to 2
• Hidden Blade Spell damage increased from 2 to 3
• Riposte Spell no longer has the cooldown keyword
• Nemesis Spell cast sequence reduced
• Bloodlust Spell also has 1 damage and 2 leech
• Propagate Seeds Spell now also heals for 2
• If a floor has a portal open then clearing the boss will not end the run

Bug Fixes And Clarity

• Added a tooltip on summons explaining there is a limit of 2
• Clear Mind tooltip made a bit clearer
• Clear mind, as with similar effects, no longer touches stones inside the active path and clarification has been added to all these spells as a sub-tip
• Nodes with no content (i.e. a Blessing when you have every Blessing) will now be marked as complete upon entering the floor
• Quickly navigating to an entity with the controller while they are still fading out no longer orphans the cursor
• Gamepad can no longer swap badges onto restricted spells
• Pain keyword reduces Rage stacks
• Evading a Barrage attack will not prevent statuses being applied to other targets
• All direct damage should proc rage (even if reduced to zero by block or plate)
• Poison no longer triggers Vulnerable
• Self-damage does not trigger thorns
• Player character’s bonus damage is no longer added to Volatile
• Perk description on character select will always appear
• The small Foxglove icon no longer moves 1 pixel to the left when activated
• Green stones are a little bit more rounded
• The Repeat keyword is crossed out on spells with End Path keyword

• Fixed a bug where scrying a boss with an innate status effect could result in a crash
• Fixed a bug where damage tagged with True Strike would not proc Vulnerable