Class balance in Very Hard

[jest]

Loving the game's combat system - there's so much depth, it reminds me of the D&D 3e. Some thoughts on my current very hard campaign:

Melee heroes feel extremely weak compared to ranged in Very hard campaign. Only the Vanguard keeps pace with the marksmen/arcanists, because of his traps/leap/throwing. Combat is a cakewalk with Marksmen/Arcanists/Vanguard, and I only take defender because it's the main character. Tanking/frontlining isn't nearly as vital as controlling the field/clearing threats quickly. Even if your melee heroes get in range, the damage payoff simply isn't there compared to the consistent high damage of range.

-Champions are by far the least useful class for me in Vhard. Even when babying/using traps/ranged to soften, they lose all their armor after the first melee brawl in No Rest for the Wicked, and become useless for the rest of the mission. They just have no survivability and prolonged sustain compared to the amount of enemies and damage being dished out.

a) Suggest adding more ways for them to regain/mitigate armor damage Ie. rage kills give back armor as well as health, lower defensive stance base CD by 1 and increase duration to 2.
b) Replace "reeling blow" with "draining strike" (strike gives 1hp a hit).
c) Add "two-handed weapon reach" to some of their abilities, which would let them hit from 2-tiles, so they don't have to be face-tanking 24/7 in order to do damage.
d) Give them innate 15% block value.

-Defender just doesn't do enough damage as the campaign moves on, even with legendary weapons. Only stuck with one because it's the main story character. Knockdown is useful, but it doesn't keep up with all the high damage/high armor units being spawned on you. Vanguard's counterattack ability (hero responds to frontal attacks with a strike) would be a better fit on the defender/tank class.

-The AP penalties on heavy armor are too much. The heaviest armor halves damage output, but defenders/champions need it to survive the fights later on. Suggest dropping the AP penalty by 1 across the board.

-It costs 2 ap to move diagonally, while ranged can just shoot from wherever they're standing. Melee has to constantly reposition. Would it be possible to make diagonal moves cost 1 AP instead? (edited)

-Sage's AP costs are too high for a melee hero. He just can't clear out units quickly enough to warrant a spot. Suggest lowering strike and freeze AP cost by 1.

-Cover isn't effective enough. It's more effective to just get more shots from your current position, than trying to go for a flank. IMO cover should provide a block % against ranged attacks in addition to the current damage reduction.

Keep it up! Can't wait to play the other acts.

[OliverSky(Муж)]

I, and after me the Russian streamer passed the first act by the team from the champion - mordred - marksman - arcanist It was easy.

[jest]

Probably because none of the streamers are playing on very hard. One did a roguelike campaign (lower difficulty than v.hard), one is playing on hard, and a couple others are playing story mode.

The disparity between classes is more visible at max difficulty. Even the difference between hard and v.hard is huge.

For example: In hard, the lowliest lost zombies barely do damage and strip armor, sometimes -1 armor per round. In very hard, they can each do 4 hits a round, each of them usually strip armor (-4 armor), with a total of 5-10 hp damage. Even if you have the best/heaviest legendary armor, it's gone within a couple rounds of combat, and the opportunities to get armor back are extremely rare - they have no sustain.

In some encounters groups of them spawn right on top of your melee and get a free turn, while ranged can get armor to negate attacks-of-opportunity or teleport away.

[jest]

Another suggestion would be to simply up the armor recovery when resting for melee characters to 50% on Very Hard, up from 25%. Melee classes rely on armor and HP just to be in combat, unlike ranged. So the 25% recovery nerf in Very Hard just makes melee even worse. Ranged characters can always shoot and be useful, even at the brink of death. A melee character without armor is dead/useless, and can't do much except hide.

[Ace490]

Thank you for putting this together. I only played on hard, but was observing the same issues although to a lower degree. The mobility and damage output of arcanists and marksmen make them way superior to the melee classes especially on maps with a lot of battles and few campfires. At this point I only use melee characters to block certain opponents although they can barely handle that task effectively on more difficult maps.
I also found the sage class to be pretty useless. The damage output is way too low, the bless (or whatever the ability to increase a char's damage is called) is ineffective until very late in the EA and on higher difficulties you just don't have enough leeway to drag around deadweight chars just to level them up until they might become useful. The only alternative of training them is also pretty useless since it takes forever to level up and the two level lower limitation keeps them weaker than most of the rest of your team anyways.
I really like the game, but the balancing on higher difficulties still has some room left for improvement.

[jest]

Originally posted by Ace490:

At this point I only use melee characters to block certain opponents although they can barely handle that task effectively on more difficult maps.

Yea, you can't even use them to bodyblock projectiles by setting up a meat wall. Enemy shots will just go right between side-by-side unit formations and hit anything in the back. So they can't hold chokes effectively, can't actually protect people behind them. With PVP coming next patch, I don't see the point of taking them when you can just instagib everything with a firing squad.


Finished my first Vhard campaign with lots of ranged and a Vanguard. Last boss wasn't even able to get a hit in or go through his phases (think he tried to summon adds the turn he was about to die).

Vanguard is god tier with the right equipment, just jumping around one-shot backstabbing everything, and being able to go completely invisible at any time (-1 tile detection gear). They can wipe out groups in the same time it would take 3 other melee units. Poison/bleed are noob traps - you fight undead 90% of the campaign, and living targets die before DoTs can work.

Arcanist just makes the game EZ mode as soon as he gets fireball. Knockback/slow does amazing damage while controlling the field. They just excel at everything. The marksmen out-damage the melee the moment you get them, but from afar. Just don't waste points on poison, you'll barely get to use it.

Defenders are dead-weight in comparison. The tier-two abilities are all trash offensive AOE abilities, that barely hit for any damage, since Defenders use low base damage one-handers, while only swinging once. Flurry might be decent if you could target the same unit multiple times. Securing hits/kills so they regain armor/hp so they aren't completely useless is actually problem. Lightning strike is a joke - use all your AP to do half the damage of a single unbuffed arrow auto-attack. Best skill is shield charge, but you can't use it once you're stuck in melee. I don't see a reason why it only does 50% damage, when the weapon's already so weak. Instead of all these weak damage abilities, skills that help them sustain themselves and protect allies would be more useful.

Vanguard's counterattack ability should be moved to the Defender tree. Vanguard already does so much damage, while Defenders sorely need help. It's just overkill on Vanguards, and their kit themed around avoiding damage.

Defender's Unyielding (hp on hit) and bleed are noobtraps, since you fight undead, undead and more undead, while the living target fights are cakewalks where you don't even need them. Unyielding should just work on everything.

Later on you get another Defender who can buff surrounding allies with 1-3 armor for 1 turn. That barely means anything on V.hard. He also gets a taunt, but the 2 temp armor barely helps to mitigate damage. So you already have a slot-locking character with Mordred, why would you bring another? They can't even bodyblock projectiles FFS.

Mordred's shown as a 2-handed Champion in the cinematics/promos - but suddenly when the game starts he's a sword and shield Defender? Would appreciate the ability to chose his starting class, since you're stuck with him the entire game. Also the game immediately dumps 3 Champions on you, and it seems like any of them could be switched a Defender, so you have more choice in the beginning.

It would be nice if players could just ignore and not bring Mordred, since you only get 4 slots and he's a Defender, but he's required in the main missions. Perhaps he should always automatically have the same level as your highest level character, that way players can bring him only when forced to, without being gimped.

Almost finished my 2nd Very Hard run, and my opinion of Champions has improved, but only because I refused to bring Vanguards and limited myself to one ranged unit per mission. They are a lot more useful once they get earthquake, which is a 6-tile piercing, high-cooldown railgun. Then they become a pseudo ranged unit. I still think they have a lot of sustain issues: defensive stance with 2 turn duration and less CD would help out with their lack of ways to regain/mitigate armor damage. They should have access to Defender's +1 armor on kill accessory, or as a perk upgrade. All their bleeds are noobtraps that don't work for most of the game. Same with Rage (damage/AP buff on kill): it doesn't work for much of the game, since undead go into suspended animation when you down them. You have to kill them twice just to activate the buff, which is entirely unfeasible when the fight's usually over before they revive. Why not have such abilities activate when you down undead instead?

Sage: described as a support unit but it's not even good at that. The buffs, Bless (+30% dmg to one ally), and Inspire (+2ap to team) aren't worth losing an entire slot. The rest are self-sustain buffs on a class that has the worst damage (4ap one-hand attack wtf?) and medium armor. The freezing attack combo might be decent if it wasn't 5ap 4cd - single target melee skill you get off once a fight. They'd be useful if they could at least control the battlefield, but all their CC is melee, so what's the point? Arcanist has a ranged knockback and slow, it's much better at support than the Sage, while obliterating everything. Sage's already frost themed, I think a ranged AOE slow and an AOE globe that gives cover against projectiles would actually make them worth bringing.

[proba 1 2 3]

Our observation was that the current Very Hard is doable with any team composition but also know that there is still work to be done. I will go into more details below about the things the OP mentioned:

- Ranged units are indeed quite powerful. You can expect further changes (some of them will be more drastical) to tune down the Ranged' glaring advantage in combat (Arcanist's Force Bolt provides less Armour Breaking now etc.)

- Champions are viable in our opinion. They can one-hit the 'weaklings' and the current meta (which can be object to change) for them is to get in the range of the enemy and reserve to kill it in the next round with 2 blows. Moreover, other teammates' buffes on them/debuffs on the enemy can further empower the Champions. Oh, and there is the Defensive Stance with which avoiding enemy damage for a round is working just fine.

- Sir Mordred is not required in every mission so he can be left out every once in a while. Defenders are not meant to deal as many damage as the other classes but in return they have semi-support/CC skills and can tank. We have more ideas how to spice the Defender up more but that's for the future.

- The current ingame items have been undergoing a serious rebalancing lately in the internal build and this includes the -1/-2 AP penalty Armours too. Moreover, Champions will have a passive which will mitigate the effect of this penalty (but only on higher level).

- The Sage's Chill talent with a lowered cost of Strike would be quite powerful, I think, but not out of the question. We will think about it.

- I'm not sure about the note on Cover: to avoid the damage reduction it seems worthy (at least for me) to flank and the Marksman has quite some passives for this which grant movement AP.

- Your calculation on diagonal movement is not 100% accurate as uneven diagonal steps cost 2 APs while even diagonal steps cost 1 AP (so if you move 2 grid diagonally it costs you 3 APs).
Moreover, in our view, Melee is not forced that much to move like Ranged, they are best getting into a suitable position and reserve and let the enemy enclose them/get in range.

Let me know what you think about our remarks.

[jest]

Originally posted by proba 1 2 3:

Our observation was that the current Very Hard is doable with any team composition but also know that there is still work to be done.

I agree, any comp is doable.

My first completed run:

Primarily used Vanguard as my main melee, Arcanist, and 2 Marksmen. Dabbled with all the melee characters/brought Mordred when I had to. All of my melee (except Vanguard) felt gimped, because I overinvested in on-kill effects (which don't work on undead, except common zombies) and DoTs (which don't work at all, except burning, which tends to be resisted by all the high armor/blocking undead).

Two of my Vanguards with the -1 tile detection gear could have easily duoed the campaign; there were some endgame fights where I only used one while spamming pass turn on my other characters. They can win every duel without getting hit. Snares and gastraps alone are insanely good. Had the -1 trap AP gear early, but I removed it because it was just too OP, and the snare-spam every turn was making combat boring. Then I got Gastrap which trivialized the game even further.

I started using my other Vanguard, specced into leap distance/CD, throwing knife, ambush with backstab gear and it was even better than my trapper. He could jump deep into enemy lines, solo the monster spawning idols, and mop up everything left without being hit. The hate/aggro perk doesn't work at all, but it didn't matter because I was just gibbing everything, final boss included.

In PVP I think they're going to be SSS tier, no one's going to be able to get in through the traps (takes more AP for the opponent to clear them, than it does to spam), and if they do get close, they're going to be instagibbed by the Yellow Flash.


Second run:

Knew more about the game. Banned Vanguards. 1 Marksman limit. Always brought Mordred.

My Arcanist got a +2 AP on kill legendary, and he's basically Thanos. Snaps his finger (fireball), 4 zombies/crossbowmen/undead archer die. AP leftover to secure another kill with curse/bolt combo. Getting rid of the enemy ranged is already half the battle.

Made an effort to build Champion correctly (no bleeds, no Rage, no wasted points on Defensive Stance upgrades, only raw damage, Juggernaut, rush Earthshaker and -1 AP armor penalty), and they ended up being much more viable. I got the 2AP cost overwatch gear, which was fun to see in action, but I usually had to deliberately stop finishing things with my ranged characters/Earthshaker so I could get overwatch kills. Definitely cool seeing 3-4 trash die in one overwatch. While finishing a game with Champion is doable, it definitely requires a lot more effort and sacrifice to bring one. One Vanguard (or Arcanist) is easily worth two Champions, and if you want lots of damage/kills every turn, why not just replace him with a Marskman? Being able to oneshot an archer behind cover with Earthshaker, once a battle, is definitely satisfying though.

- Champions are viable in our opinion. They can one-hit the 'weaklings' and the current meta (which can be object to change) for them is to get in the range of the enemy and reserve to kill it in the next round with 2 blows. Moreover, other teammates' buffes on them/debuffs on the enemy can further empower the Champions. Oh, and there is the Defensive Stance with which avoiding enemy damage for a round is working just fine.

Defensive Stance balance: the 1 turn uptime is just too short, and the cooldown too long. With a 5 turn cooldown, realistically, you get a one-round boost of 5 armor for the entire fight. Yes, you can get -1 AP cooldown per kill for Strike, but that relies on a constant source of common zombies. Starting mid-game the fights are all bosses/high armor/shield undead, who go into torpor instead of dying. As it is, defensive stance is barely enough to tank a turn of crossbow fire.

If there's only two suggestions I'd make for the class:

1) increase the Defensive stance duration to 2, or lower the CD. Otherwise, he's holding back and reserving AP the entire fight. It's better to play that way, as you say, but it also makes him a sub-optimal pick, because you could just be nuking things every round with ranged, or diving behind enemy lines with Vanguard.

2) Just make his existing abilities work: All on-kill abilities (-CD per kill for strike, Rage) trigger whenever you down a Lost for the first time. Only triggering on kill means his staple class passives don't apply for the majority of the campaign - the toughest fights throw torpor units at you, not zombies. With on-kill changed to on-down, he'd be always be worth bringing, instead of simply being viable.

- Sir Mordred is not required in every mission so he can be left out every once in a while. Defenders are not meant to deal as many damage as the other classes but in return they have semi-support/CC skills and can tank. We have more ideas how to spice the Defender up more but that's for the future.

Mordred's shield charge is indeed invaluable. It's one of the best abilities in the game (certainly his best), as there's only two sources of hard lockdown (charge/freeze). Not only does it knock away and break engagement, so ranged can shoot for full damage, but downed enemies can't block and take massive bonus damage. It has short CD and crazy range. With this skill alone, you can make him work.

But everything else in his kit is questionable. All his tier-two skills are damage. The lightning strike stun might be amazing, but it's level 10. Flurry/cleave are incredibly bad, given his low base damage, and having him surrounded is out of the question in V.Hard. He doesn't have any skills that actually let him tank; at least Champion has defensive stance for 1 round. All he has is passive block/HP increases. Once his armor's gone, he's just as squishy as anyone else. He has exclusive access to a +armor on kill trinket, but that stops being a thing quickly into act 1, because more and more enemies go into torpor, replacing zombies.

IMO he needs things to help him tank better on V.hard -- it would help immensely if his existing staple passives actually worked: Unyielding's health recovery on-hit applies to all enemies, not just living targets. All on-kill effects apply whenever you down a Lost for the first time. Right now he's just an (easily deflated) bag of HP, with one very useful skill. If he got the Vanguard's counterattack, he'd be able to contribute enough to feel like a main character.

In regards to the other Defender, Pelleas, He's squishy AF without any self-defensive abilities, and the +2 armor given by taunt is barely enough to absorb half a zombie's attack. Guard is high cooldown, and sacrifices all his AP. At the very least, Guard should apply armor to himself as well. All AP for a measly +3 armor on V.Hard for 1 round is a terrible tradeoff, considering how much you're giving up without another Vanguard, Arcanist, Marksman, or even Champion.

- The Sage's Chill talent with a lowered cost of Strike would be quite powerful, I think, but not out of the question. We will think about it.

I'm on my third run, trying to make the Sage the main character, but it's rough and slow-going. The freeze/shatter combo, while good on paper, works against one target, for one swing, every 3 turns. You even have to reserve AP to pull off that one strike. All this setup, to barely accomplish what Arcanists (curse/bolt, fireball) and Marksmen (DoTs/dmg boost on shoot combo), and Vanguards do every round in their sleep. Freeze is solid, but when he doesn't have it, his damage output is worse than Mordred. So at best, he feels like he's pulling weight once every 3 turns.

His tier-two skill Globe (2armor/10hp) is a self-sustain, instead of group support; it feels like a waste on a character with medium armor, who has the lowest killing speed of all characters. Why not just make it an aura, since the CD is already so high? Inspire sacrifices an entire turn, so a Defender/Champion can swing one extra time on the next turn, every 4 turns, if they have reserved AP -- it's a huge amount of preparation and conditions, for a small reward. Currently, I'm really just bringing him for challenge/variety -- certainly not worth sacrificing ranged/AOE field-control, and raw killing power of Arcanist/Vanguards/Marksmen. Even replacing my Earthshaker Champion feels like a huge loss.

- I'm not sure about the note on Cover: to avoid the damage reduction it seems worthy (at least for me) to flank and the Marksman has quite some passives for this which grant movement AP.

I'm saying ranged is so strong because the damage is unavoidable. Body-blocking projectiles doesn't work with the current LOS rules, where you can just shoot between side-by-side enemies and hit whatever you want in the back.

The only other option to mitigate ranged damage is cover, but cover isn't very effective. The AI is very smart about using LOS and cover, but most of the time I find it better to just use all my AP to shoot an enemy through it, instead of wasting AP to flank. Arrows penetrate through solid stone walls, and still deplete several armor. Or just throw a fireball.

King Arthur could have more tactical depth if environment/cover control played a bigger role (like X-Com, where good cover/positioning/flanking tactics are vital): in addition to the current damage reduction of cover, say half-cover gives another 30% block value (same as Defenders) and -50% armor-break against projectiles. Full cover could give a 50% block value and fully protect against armor-break, making it extremely valuable.

Having cover be more valuable is a nerf to range, but IMO a good nerf because it works for both sides and makes out-positioning tactics a lot more important. Melee would be able to defend good terrain/chokes longer without bleeding away all their armor, unless the ranged gets a better flanking angle. Maybe you'd want to actually push up with your melee against that sniper lodged behind a pillar in PVP, or rely less on your on your AWP/artillery heroes vastly outgunning mobs in PVE.

- The current ingame items have been undergoing a serious rebalancing lately in the internal build and this includes the -1/-2 AP penalty Armours too. Moreover, Champions will have a passive which will mitigate the effect of this penalty (but only on higher level).

Glad to hear the penalties are being looked at. The level 5 -AP armor penalty perk for Champion is a no-brainer, but even after I got it, I don't think it's enough. The armor goes all the way to -3 AP, at that point it doesn't feel like the character's worth using anymore. The penalties are very restricting for the amount of tankiness they add on Very Hard, so much so, that I only consider one armor worth using (I had several legendary heavies across 3 runs): the max -1 armor lost per hit heavy armor is easily the best, while being a common blue drop. IMO heavy armors should just have -1 ap across the board, before perks, since heavy armor classes already sacrifice damage/lack range.

Traditional "tanking" just isn't a thing on V.hard -- you either CC, kill, or reposition to where you don't get hit at all, because even that golden armor is depleted in a couple rounds of melee trades, and it isn't coming back. With the current build, the AP penalties seem to reflect tanking being highly overvalued, at least on V.Hard.

- Your calculation on diagonal movement is not 100% accurate as uneven diagonal steps cost 2 APs while even diagonal steps cost 1 AP (so if you move 2 grid diagonally it costs you 3 APs).
Moreover, in our view, Melee is not forced that much to move like Ranged, they are best getting into a suitable position and reserve and let the enemy enclose them/get in range.

Ah! So that's what it was. Nice to see that the occasional 1-cost diagonal move is an intended feature. Still, melee wastes a lot of AP to reposition, while shooting/jumping wastes no AP. Ranged also get all the free movement AP perks, when melee actually needs it the most.

So while I agree, hanging back and reserving AP, letting them come to you is the melee meta - essentially, melee is pigeonholed into camping most of the fight. Especially with the AP-penalized heavy armor classes, they can end up feeling like dead-weight compared to Vanguards/ranged, who are always killing things every turn, all the time, no matter what. With a Vanguard, I can just jump behind and gib them, ignoring wasted movement, or go invis/lose aggro/get a free surprise attack-of-opportunity; afar or upclose, the Vanguad's always contributing. Meanwhile, my heavy-armor melee is struggling to get one swing off, while trying to achieve the perfect spacing so they're not completely surrounded, instantly depleting their armor for the rest of the mission. Since diagonal movement costs and armor penalties are so restrictive, most battles are spent passing turns while the others mop up.

The heavy armor classes are absolutely viable for V.Hard, even the Sage, it's just that players currently take drastic power cuts for bringing them.

Thanks for actually reading this and humoring me btw. If you can't already tell, I'm really into this game. The art design, music, writing, atmosphere and especially combat are all fantastic; you have a real gem in the works.

[proba 1 2 3]

I'm looking forward to your next feedback after we roll out the last EA patch sometime around mid-December.

Some noteworthy changes which relate to the melee-range balance and the various Hero skills (I copied them from the patchnote being in the making:

- Heroes no longer have base HP, only Armours or enchants/skills/building upgrades can grant them HP now. With the removal of the base HP, all Heroes' Vitality was increased
- The values of Armour Breaking have been halved proportionately for both the various weapons of our Heroes and for the enemy units too. As a result, there will be less HP loss for our Heroes but the enemies' defenses became more sturdy as well
- All existing Heroes had some of their skills replaced with new ones or their number of abilities increased in order to make the characters more unique and balanced

[Omni]

Originally posted by proba 1 2 3:

- Heroes no longer have base HP, only Armours or enchants/skills/building upgrades can grant them HP now. With the removal of the base HP, all Heroes' Vitality was increased

What does this functionally/mechanically accomplish?

[jest]

Patch notes look hefty. Can't wait to do a fresh run!

With lower HP, won't that mean more injuries from VIT damage? Which could be a good thing, since players would rotate through the roster, instead of sticking with the most powerful ones every map.

Armor change looks really good, the best armor was broken in a couple hits on vhard, unless you ran the -1 max depletion armor. With lower armor break, the other armors might be more comparable.

Skill changes interest me the most, since 80% of builds simply didn't work because undead were immune to every DoT/passive. *Fingers crossed*

Originally posted by Omni:

Originally posted by proba 1 2 3:

- Heroes no longer have base HP, only Armours or enchants/skills/building upgrades can grant them HP now. With the removal of the base HP, all Heroes' Vitality was increased

What does this functionally/mechanically accomplish?

VIT healing is rare -- it can't be recovered at campfires or with pots, and you have a chance to accrue injuries whenever VIT's damaged.

[Omni]

Originally posted by jest:

VIT healing is rare -- it can't be recovered at campfires or with pots, and you have a chance to accrue injuries whenever VIT's damaged.

The patch notes teaser says:

The reason for this change was to make the ranged-melee meta more balanced, and to make Vitality a bigger life-belt, which cannot be one-hit that easily. This also means that Armour got a lot more important and ranged heroes won’t be able to move as recklessly as before.

Perhaps I am missing something but doesn't this exacerbate the Ranged vs Melee meta even more in favor of Ranged? Ideally, Ranged shouldn't be taking damage at all, while it seems Melee are now immediately in danger of injuries with few options for VIT recovery. Perhaps they significantly buffed Melee mitigation and sustain like you repeatedly suggested they should, but at the moment I do not have high hopes for Ranged vs Melee balance.

[jest]

The campfires will recover 50% of armor, up from 25%. Meanwhile, armor break was lowered. The campfire change alone would've made a big difference last patch.

Ranged never had much armor to begin with. Since ranged and especially magic damage from enemies is unavoidable, I could see our archers/mages being injured at the same rate.

Perhaps injuries were reworked so they don't accrue unless a character's at low VIT, or when suffering from big hits. Maybe healing times were lowered. More frequent injuries with lower recovery, and forcing roster rotations could be great for the strategy layer, since the B-stack were benchwarmers for the entire campaign. Players might have a reason to rotate to neglected characters.

[proba 1 2 3]

Originally posted by jest:

With lower HP, won't that mean more injuries from VIT damage? Which could be a good thing, since players would rotate through the roster, instead of sticking with the most powerful ones every map.

Quoting again from the patch notes written by myself:

"From now on, Heroes will suffer injuries based on the amount of Vitality they lost. Every Hero's Vitality have been split into five levels and whenever they suffer a hit which drops their Vitality below a level, they will be inflicted an injury
Injuries have been divided into two categories, light and severe ones. Heroes can suffer only light injuries at first but if they lose a bigger portion of the Vitalities they can receive light and severe injuries as well
Developer comment: The previous mechanism of the Injury system was less ideal as Heroes were injured based on how many hits they suffered so even weaker enemy units who barely caused any damage could inflict injuries on them repeatedly"

[proba 1 2 3]

Originally posted by Omni:

Originally posted by proba 1 2 3:

- Heroes no longer have base HP, only Armours or enchants/skills/building upgrades can grant them HP now. With the removal of the base HP, all Heroes' Vitality was increased

What does this functionally/mechanically accomplish?

That Vitality will play an even more important role from now on but as we rebalanced the Injury system, the Heroes cannot suffer injuries as often as they did.

Moreover, this way players will not stick to their 4 strongest Heroes but pay attention to the rest of them too. As a result, the Hero pool will be more balanced.

[proba 1 2 3]

Originally posted by Omni:

Originally posted by jest:

VIT healing is rare -- it can't be recovered at campfires or with pots, and you have a chance to accrue injuries whenever VIT's damaged.

Perhaps I am missing something but doesn't this exacerbate the Ranged vs Melee meta even more in favor of Ranged? Ideally, Ranged shouldn't be taking damage at all, while it seems Melee are now immediately in danger of injuries with few options for VIT recovery. Perhaps they significantly buffed Melee mitigation and sustain like you repeatedly suggested they should, but at the moment I do not have high hopes for Ranged vs Melee balance.

Thanks to the armour changes, Melee won't suffer as many injuries as before but the Ranged also has to be extra careful from now on not to get hit. They won't remain as tanky as they are right now in the live build.