Welcome to the Jungle

[Fyst]

In this Sins of a Dark Age developer blog I'll be sharing a few details on the upcoming Jungle update. We always felt that Junglers kind of had the short end of the stick so we wanted to make the Jungling experience more mechanically interesting, more rewarding, more strategic and more fun. In last week's update we started by introducing the Hunter's Spear and its Nerroth successors. This week I'll talk about some additional upcoming changes.

Altars

Every creep camp now contains an Altar, whose tooltip will display basic information about the camp such as its initial spawn time and respawn frequency. Altars in all of the small creep camps can additionally be activated by the new Offering Glyph described below.

New Glyph: Offering

A new Offering glyph targets the Altars at cleared small creep camps. Doing so will cause the camp to immediately respawn with a larger and more powerful version of its Large creep. Killing this "Dire Creep" will grant the killer a unique temporary buff that varies based on the type of camp where Offering was used. For example, the Dire Dagger Tusk's Predatory Senses buff gives lingering vision of an area where you kill any Large or Epic neutral monster. This is great for gaining map control, counter-jungling, questing and setting up ambushes. Choosing which camps you'll use Offering on and when in your route to do so gives Junglers more strategic flexibility and more varied experiences from game to game.

New Creeps

In addition to the new Offering creeps the creep pool in general has been fleshed out. With the introduction of Horen wave minions, it is time for the Horen Witch Doctor and other Horen creeps to make way for more natural inhabitants of the Sunken Forest. The Witch Doctor and crew has been replaced by the powerful Wisp Queen and her retinue of Lesser Wisps while the other Horen Camp has been overrun by Leaf Scorpions. The Lesser Wisps that were temporarily accompanying the Troll have been replaced by Frill Spitters. As for the fate of the Horen Witch Doctor - have no fear, he is simply in hiding while he plots his grand return for vengeance!

New Creep Capabilities

Each camp's creeps have gained new abilities that affect how you fight each camp tactically and add strategic considerations in the routes different heroes will take to clear the Jungle. Examples include Stone Skin that protects the Troll during the day, while Grow Seedlings and Corrosive Cloud will escalate the great war between Wood Imps and Verics!

Conclusion

With the new jungling items, Altars, Offering, Dire Creeps and other improvements we expect Jungling to be a lot more engaging and rewarding. The strategic possibility space has also increased dramatically - combine all the new changes with the various Jungling heroes (e.g. Grugg), Glyphs (e.g. Slaughter) and Hero Gear (e.g. Huntsman's Wraps) and Junglers' natural aptitude for Quests and you have a very interesting and strategic system that we are confident will really elevate the Jungling experience.

Sneak Peaks
Jungle Items[www.ironcladgames.com]
Dire Dagger Tusk[www.ironcladgames.com]
Dire Leaf Scorpion[www.ironcladgames.com]
Dire Veric[www.ironcladgames.com]
Dire Wood Imp[www.ironcladgames.com]

[manny the veric king]

That empowered Veric is the most beautiful thing I've seen since . . . the normal verics.

[Fyst]

Behold the Triveritops!

(I only wish that was his real name)

[manny the veric king]

When it's on the defensive, it's a real . . . . vericade.

Glad to see Serewyn's Leaf Scorpion's running amok and causing a lot of papercuts and the like!

(Serewyn used to have Leaf Scorpions as a passive and as part of his Q before being replaced by the Seeds of Renewal. And yes, they are better than Wood Imps at least.)

[Eruvenusumairu]

aaaw Leaf Scorpion is so cuuuuute. Wanna pet it.

[Fat Viking Nerd]

I like particularly that more heroes will be jungle viable now! Previously just gear for jungle enhancements, but now Items and a Glyph too.

The number of beginning and mid game strategies from the Glyph and the buffs that the empowered creeps provide is really opened up. It feels like the jungle is pulled into standard game play routine, rather than having such a hard etched meta of a single Hero as the jungler. I am really excited to see what strategies unfold!

[twitch.tv/TheShawn]

the main problem before was probably the glyph cooldown, other than that i had no real issue ever jungling, which i normally do any time i play

[Corpsefoot]

Originally posted by Fyst:

(I only wish that was his real name)

Easter Egg nametag, perhaps? =P

Is it just me, or is jungling now a conundrum for players much better than me to untangle; I doubt my old Slivus route is even close to viable anymore, at least until my account hits level 30 haha

Also, I dunno about you guys...but now I really want to know what a grown Nerroth actually looks like >=3

[Corpsefoot]

Originally posted by Asphalt:

the main problem before was probably the glyph cooldown, other than that i had no real issue ever jungling, which i normally do any time i play

Did you try branching the Glyph path down the Low Cooldown fork? I generally didn't even need that one, because Slivus's sheer clear speed allowed me to invest in the Passive Damage bump instead, at least once I pumped enough stat points into his base health pool to survive the troll XD

[manny the veric king]

The king of beasts, Nerroth once prowled the wilds of the divine realm. Nerroth's Fangs[soada.wikia.com]

When the heavens fell, Nerroth was cast to the earth. Nerroth's Eye[soada.wikia.com]

Nerroth has wandered the mortal world for centuries, roaring at the shattered sky. Nerroth's Hide[soada.wikia.com]

With Nerroth's death this armor was granted, but more of heaven was lost. Nerroth-Slayer's Mail[soada.wikia.com]

[Corpsefoot]

Oh Lord, is that the actual flavor text?! *D:

Gimme Nerroth Quest, IC! Gimme gimme!

[manny the veric king]

Originally posted by Exorcised:

Oh Lord, is that the actual flavor text?! *D:

Gimme Nerroth Quest, IC! Gimme gimme!

It would be neato that if a whole team had each of the Nerroth components, a reincarnated Nerroth would spawn in the jungle and wreck things.

(A sort of quasi quest triggered by each team member owning one of the four Nerroth items. Earth, fire, wind, water, heart. GO NERROTH!)

[Eruvenusumairu]

Originally posted by manny the veric king:

It would be neato that if a whole team had each of the Nerroth components, a reincarnated Nerroth would spawn in the jungle and wreck things.

Like Gryphon quest?

[manny the veric king]

I was thinking more of Roshan during Diretide.

Where he is some super elite that randomly targets certain players.

Like a wild raid boss or something. (Or maybe he can patrol the jungle and only attack those who stray inside. Maybe a Gryphon jungle version instead of lane version.)

As for the components, it would be interesting if each teammate had a requirement to fulfill (such as each making a Nerroth item,) and that upon completion, some sort of buff or event will happen.

[MaxBedlam]

"As for the fate of the Horen Witch Doctor - have no fear, he is simply in hiding while he plots his grand return for vengeance!"

Witch Doctor is totally gonna be a new hero!

[Charles Foster Ofdensen]

^That actually makes quite a bit of sense, seeing as how drengar is the only horen hero on the roster at present.