Hello and welcome to the third and final phase of the Seekers of the Storm Roadmap! In Phase One we overhauled all of the DLC Items, in Phase Two we revamped the False Son Boss Fight and in this final phase we have updated and improved each of the DLC Survivors: Seeker, False Son and CHEF.

If you’re looking for the notes for this update, you can find those here!

Although this is the last phase in the SotS improvement roadmap we have some big plans in store for the future of Risk of Rain 2, a sneak peek of which is later in this very Devlog! Before we get ahead of ourselves, let's talk about those big improvements to the Survivors…

Not only have all three Survivors had their base kits improved and rebalanced, they have all been given TWO more unique alternate skills! These new and improved abilities give you a multitude of skill combinations to choose from to customize your runs.
For a full detailed list of the changes please check out the Update Notes HERE - But I wanted to give you a quick tour of the most exciting changes: new unlockable skills for each of the Survivors - First up: Seeker!

The biggest change to Seeker’s kit is that she’ll now have the ability to Self-Revive. Previously, this ability only affected your teammates. Now, once you’ve made the significant investment during a stage to max out your stacks of Tranquility you’re given the ability to Self-Revive once per stage. Don’t worry, as long as you have the stacks, it will trigger automatically if you die.

Once you’ve reached max Tranquility you can now revive your teammates (once per stage) with any subsequent successful Meditation, it no longer has to be the 7th stack.

Speaking of Tranquility - Seeker has a brand new alternate Special ability that will help you stack it up if Meditate isn’t your speed… it’s okay to admit if you have trouble with the button combos, there’s no shame in it.

This new ability gives you a more aggressive way to gain stacks of Tranquility…Introducing: Palm Blast.
Palm Blast is a huge chargeable piercing projectile that deals 400%-700% damage to enemies. In keeping with Seeker’s support function, it also heals allies it impacts.

With a well timed Palm Blast that hits three enemies and/or allies in a single hit you will gain a stack of Tranquility. This is a great option for those who want to keep the flow of combat rolling.

Now let’s take a look at Seeker’s new alternate utility Reprieve. This one will come in handy when you’re trying to bunch a group of enemies together to make the most of your toolkit both old and new.

With Reprieve, similar to Sojourn, you take flight to take the fight to your enemies. But that's where the similarities between these abilities ends - Reprieve grants you a small amount of barrier and your flight duration is limited by the duration of that barrier. You also accelerate rapidly over time which allows you to traverse the stage much faster, but at the trade-off of aerial control.

But that isn't always a bad thing. The impact of Reprieve where the ability really shines. When you hit an enemy or surface a huge swirling vortex is created which pulls in and damages enemies; while also healing nearby allies.

This gives you the perfect setup to dunk on trapped monsters with the rest of Seeker’s kit making her a true force to be reckoned with.

Similar to her base abilities, each of the new attacks is greatly enhanced with each stack of Tranquility you gain, increasing in both damage and healing output as your stacks creep higher.

While False Son has had several of his abilities tweaked in damage output, we’ve made two significant upgrades to his base kit in direct response to community feedback…

Firstly, we’ve made it so that you can use his dash Step of the Brothers while using Club Slam OR Laser of the Father, giving you far better maneuverability using these charged attacks.

The second community-driven change to his existing kit is making his Lunar Spikes Agile. That makes this one of the very few abilities in the game which can be fired while sprinting.

While this does give False Son a great quality-of-life update, you might find it hard to pick between Lunar Spikes and the new secondary ability Lunar Stakes.

Lunar Stakes shoots a powerful piercing lunar-infused shard for 300% damage. Each time the Lunar Stake hits an enemy or impacts a surface a blast of lightning strikes dealing 150% AOE damage.

Each Lunar Stake impact applies Lunar Ruin to enemies, with an additional Ruin stack being inflicted by the following lightning strike. The available stacks of Lunar Stakes can also be increased by Growth. But, with this alternate ability it takes twice as many HP increasing items to increase your stacks!

Lunar Stakes adds a new option for taking out your foes at range - but what about if you like getting up close and personal with his Melee attacks? The new alternate utility ability Meridian’s Will should satisfy your lust for carnage!

With Meridian’s Will you teleport to your target inflicting 150% damage and stunning any nearby monsters. This also gives you a temporary attack speed and armor boost with your passive ability Lunar Tampering. Enjoy swinging your club slightly faster at those unsuspecting Gups.

One of our top goals for this phase is to rescue CHEF from the bottom of the tier list rankings - so they have undergone the most dramatic changes of the three. Every single one of its existing abilities has had significant changes. CHEF’s Dice now allows you to throw out three separate cleavers at once. You can opt to let those auto-return or you can hold down the Dice ability, holding them in place and massively boosting their damage for the return back to CHEF. This ought to allow for far more culinary carnage with far fewer button presses!

Sear now has significantly greater range allowing you to scorch your enemies without forcing you into melee range.

Roll now charges much faster making it a far more viable mobility ability. Glaze has also had a huge improvement - but more on that in a minute…

Let’s get to the fun part: the new alternate abilities we’re adding to CHEF! With a lot of these CHEF is returning to its roots with some time-honored staples.

But let's start with a brand new one, CHEF’s alternate secondary ability Ice Box. This adds some crowd-control to CHEF’s arsenal.

Ice Box fires ice cubes which deal 3x150% damage to enemies and applies Frost to them. Enemies inflicted with Frost are slowed and with 6 stacks you’ll completely Freeze your enemies instantly killing them below 30% health, just like Artificer's Snap Freeze and Railgunner’s Cryocharge.

Personally, my favorite alternate ability we cooked up is CHEF’s new utility - Oil Spill. Twirl into the air spewing oil below you dealing damage to enemies as you land and coating them in oil which makes them vulnerable to your other attacks.

If you tap the Oil Spill button just as you land you can re-activate the ability 3 times in a row allowing you to spread Oil patches over a huge area or if you’re just trying to get up to the Newt Shrine, you can just tap it for a single launch.

What possible use could you have for enemies and an environment absolutely covered in flammable liquid?

That’s right, when you use Oil Spill or Glaze you’ll now leave large patches of oil soaked on the ground. Follow this up with a blast of Sear to ignite these patches dealing huge fire damage to your foes.

Ooooooooor, freeze the oil using Ice Box to make whole packs of enemies rapidly gain stacks of Frost until they are eventually Frozen.

Ahh yes…. delicious lemuriancicles.

And yes, each of these new abilities can be enhanced with Yes, Chef! But we’ll let you discover those exciting new combos for yourself!

So what’s next? A lot of folks have been asking what our plans are once this roadmap wraps up, and it’s a fair question. So today, we want to give you a little window into everything else we’ve been working on.

Overall, we’re really happy with where DLC2’s quality has landed after all these updates/patches, but there are still a few more things the team would like to plug away at. We’ve also been working on an optimization update for the game’s system memory. It will improve some parts of the experience, but will have the largest impact on lower spec PCs/Switch.

After the memory optimisation patch we have even more content to come, I’ll be keeping that a closely guarded secret today however, rumour has it that if you want to be the first to hear about the exciting future of Risk of Rain 2 you probably shouldn't miss out on the Gearbox section of PAX East on Friday 9th May… just sayin’ (make sure you’re following our socials too!)

As we have more to share on all these fronts we’ll let you know. As always we encourage you to give us your feedback, the best place to do so is on the Risk of Rain Discord.

The last few months have been an insane ride for the team. With Phase One they rebuilt (nearly) all of the items added with DLC2. With Phase Two False Son had his boss fight reworked and we made Halcyonite fly (amongst other things). And with Phase Three, the team made some much needed improvements to the Survivors while also adding six new Alternate Abilities.

Through it all we’ve had this community to celebrate our successes with and, almost more importantly, to tell us when something didn’t measure up. We can’t promise to always be perfect. But, I hope what we’ve shown is that we’re always working to make Risk of Rain the best possible version of itself - and that we’ll dedicate the time that’s needed to do that.

You have all driven us to explore new ideas, to keep challenging ourselves, and to keep listening. So thank you, truly, for being here every step of the way.

Over the last few months the entire team has been overwhelmed to see the recent reviews slowly climb up with each phase we’ve released. We just want you to know that has not gone unnoticed and we deeply appreciate everyone’s support and love for the game.

Bye for now,

- The Risk of Rain Team

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2306620/Risk_of_Rain_2_Seekers_of_the_Storm/

These are the notes for the third (and final) phase of the Seekers of the Storm roadmap. For more details about this phase you can check out the Dev Diary right here!

• Added alternate abilities Lunar Stakes and Meridian’s Will, including Unlock Challenges.
  
• Step of the Brothers dash can now be used while using & charging both Laser of the Father and Club Slam.
  
• Primary (Club of the Forsaken) changes:
  * Normal swing damage increased to 450%, Charged Slam damage reduced to 1000%
  * Knockback reduced.
  * Charged Slam proc coefficient reduced to 1 (was 3.)
  * Air-to-Ground Charged Slam increased in speed, increased blast radius and proc coefficient increased from 1 to 1.5 after 0.5 seconds of airtime.
  
• Lunar Spikes changes:
  * Ability changed to Agile - can now be used while sprinting.
  * Increased damage to 200%.
  * Animation and Firing time reduced to enable faster Lunar Spike firing..
  
• Increased alternate special “Laser Burst” damage to 1250% (was 1000%) and increased the Lunar Spikes refill to 50% (was 30%)
  
• Laser Burst also has had its radius increased to be more accurate and impactful
  
• Laser Burst’s VFX have also been updated.
  
• False Son’s starting damage stat decreased from 13 to 12, but scaling stat increased from 2 to 2.4, meaning that at the very start of the game you’ll do slightly less damage, but you’ll get stronger faster as the game progresses.
  
• The cooldown for Laser Burst has slightly increased from 7 seconds to 8 seconds

• Added alternate abilities Reprieve and Palm Blast, including Unlock Challenges.
  
• Any successful Meditate from the 7th stack onwards will now revive teammates in multiplayer (previously it was only the 7th stack.)
  
• Can now self-revive once 7 stacks of Tranquility are achieved.
  
• Increased range of Meditation Explosion by 2m per Tranquility Stack.
  
• Sojourn’s cooldown has been slightly reduced from 9 seconds to 8 seconds.
  
• Meditate’s cooldown has been slightly reduced from 15 seconds to 14 seconds.
  
• Overall, skill descriptions have been updated for better clarity.
  
• Spirit Punches 3rd now gains 50% more damage per Tranquility stack.
  
• Sojourn now increases by 500% damage per second (previously 400%). Damage over time has also been slightly increased.
  
• The explosion from Meditate now increases by 200% damage per Tranquility stack

• Added alternate abilities Ice Box and Oil Spill including “Yes, CHEF!” Variants & Unlock Challenges.
  
• Updated character name from Chef to CHEF.
  
• Primary (Dice) changes:
  * Changed behavior to have 3 stocks and for projectiles to auto-return if the attack button is not held.
  * Single Dice cleaver damage reduced to 200% (Overall damage increased due to ability stocks.)
  * Cleavers held out will now cause increased continuous damage to enemies that come into contact with them, and will do double damage when returning to CHEF.
  
• Removed Sear's animation delay and and shortened its activation time while maintaining the same amount of damage
  
• Boosted Dice now does 400% damage
  
• Boosted Sear projectiles create pre-ignited oil pools when colliding with the ground
  
• Boosted Roll now adds more bleed on hit
  
• Covering enemies in oil now counts towards CHEF's passive
  
• Updated Roll to charge significantly faster.
  
• Jumping out of Roll now provides a super jump to CHEF
  
• Range of Sear has been significantly increased and is much easier to aim.
  
• Glaze (and the new ability Oil Spill) leave patches of Flammable (and freezable!) Oil on the ground.
  
• Sear’s cooldown has been slightly increased from 5 seconds to 6 seconds.
  
• Roll’s cooldown has been slightly reduced from 9 seconds to 8 seconds.
  
• Glaze’s cooldown has been increased from 10 seconds to 12 seconds.
  
• Yes Chef! Has had its cooldown reduced from 15 seconds to 10 seconds

• Mithrix and False Son now acknowledge imposters.
  
• In the Void Fields Items are now only added to the monster pool at the start of each cell event (previously they would gain extra items if an excessive amount of time was taken to complete each cell.)
  
• We have reduced the Void Fog damage of the Void fields and decreased the rate at which the Void Fog damage ramps up outside of the safe zones.
  
• The Void Fields no longer increments the stage counter on completion.
  
• Elusive Antlers now will spawn more orbs per stack (+1 per stack -> +3 per stack) and has had its minimum spawn time for orbs reduced from 5 seconds to 2 seconds.
  
• Bolstering Lantern’s scaling is now more focused on the item's utility rather than increasing its effective range. It now grants 10% (+ 3.5% per stack) attack speed (up from a flat 7.5%). That effect is granted per Monster or Ally in a 20 meter range up to 3 (+ 1 per stack). The range no longer scales with additional Lanterns.
  
• Unstable Transmitter now grants 60% barrier on activation (up from 35%). It has also had its internal cooldown changed from 45 seconds to 1.1 seconds, for those of you that choose to hoard several Transmitters at a time.

• Sometimes one or both logos will not appear during the splash screen 'boot-up'. This has a planned fix in an upcoming update.

• Players who have completed the “CHEF’s Wok” recipe but never received the “Order Up” achievement (and were therefore unable to unlock CHEF) will now be able to complete the achievement.
  
  Developer note: If you are a player that completed the CHEF’s Wok’s recipe but never received Chef’s “Order Up” achievement, then just booting the game after this update and reaching the main menu should grant you the achievement. If you are an Xbox user and don’t get the achievement upon reaching the main menu when unlocking CHEF moving forward, this might be related to missing save data. The solution for this is just to start a run with any survivor and that should grant the “Order Up” achievement". We are going to continue looking out for any save related issues so keep the reports coming.
  
  
• Issue with missing music and sound when many other sounds are playing (primarily on Nintendo Switch) should now be resolved - Many other smaller scale audio issues should also now be resolved across all platforms.
  
• The False Son (Boss) Colossus laser damage ramp-up no longer carries over between runs.
  
• When playing as CHEF in multiplayer, other players will no longer see or hear you charge Boosted Roll after the ability should have ended.
  
• Carried Warbanner will no longer clip through Captain’s model
  
• Mercenary’s swing/slash animation will now properly play when performing a primary attack just after performing Blinding Assault.
  
• Missing healing orbs from Monster Tooth should now appear again on console.
  
• Model/Environment wireframe should no longer be visible when the camera is dipped below water on PS4.
  
• Stage will correctly lose saturation when False Son (boss) uses Prime Devastator on Xbox.
  
• Dying as Seeker during Meditate will now correctly allow you to spectate other players in multiplayer.
  
• Leaves on Treeborn Colony have had correct collisions added to prevent players getting stuck.
  
• Multiple small out-of-bounds gaps which could lead to players falling through the map have been patched up.
  
• Removed/Replaced several instances of incorrect dev-text being visible to players.
  
• Gaining Twisted Elite effect via Wake of Vultures should now function correctly as a player.
  
• War Bonds now correctly triggers when encountering Mithrix within the Simulacrum.
  
• Mithrix will correctly drop a red-tier item when defeated in Simulacrum while holding Sonorous Whispers.
  
• Chance Doll can no longer drop when using Artifact of Sacrifice (as no Chance Shrines spawn.)
  
• Character shadows no longer cause visual issues with the Ready button on the Survivor select screen.
  
• MUL-T can no longer charge & trigger Luminous Shot from its Alt Primary during Power Mode (it now only charges Luminous Shot.)
  
• CHEF’s Goobo Jr clones are now considered mechanical and are thus immune to Void Infestors (but now benefit from Spare Drone Parts!)
  
• When Mithrix is boosted into the air with Breaching Fin he will now correctly display the visual indicators of his Forbidden Pizza attack. Yes, that is the official name.
  Developer Note: No, it isn't.
  Community Manager Note: Yes, it is.
  
• Fixed issue where False Son (Survivor) Laser Burst would not do damage in multiplayer.
  
• Fixed visual issue with Seeker’s barrier when benefiting from the Warped Echo effect.
  
• Players will no longer retain a charge of Unstable Transmitter if revived after being killed during the active-effect.
  
• In multiplayer clients will correctly have their equipment disabled during the False Son Boss Fight when affected by Prime Devastator.
  
• Fixed multiplayer Prime Devastator issue where players could have locked equipment remain locked if revived during the fight.
  
• War Bond’s model in the logbook has grown out of its emo phase and decided to remove its black make-up.
  
• Seeker’s Sojourn will no longer consume all charges when used while benefiting from Hardlight Afterburner.
  
• False Son Boss’s hitbox has been extended below the knees. Rejoice, short kings!