The tanky, aggressive enemies often made me feel like the game expected me to both have friends with me and optimized gear crafted via its clunky menus at all times.
Yet even this once reliable gameplay cycle began to feel like a slog. And it’s absolutely baffling that’s the case, because I did have some real fun here when I was in that classic loop of using my skills and my wits to dispatch hoards of monsters and collect the loot they drop. That’s how deeply buried the core gameplay is. I got this far and barely talked about what it’s like to actually dungeon crawl in Hammerwatch 2. If you cannot read Japanese, you might want to visit the Google Translation instead.Screenshot by Destructoid I’ll Hammer-watch out for the future Article about crystals at the Japanese Stick Ranger Wiki.When the LV5 Crystals were just released in ver10.9, they had the same stats as the LV4 ones except the selling price due to a mistake in the code.The Black Crystal 3, Silver Crystal 1, and Silver Crystal 2 are three of the few compo items which can be dropped by two or more enemies.However, such a setup may easily fall prey to a Boxer wielding Needle Claw 6 should that Boxer get a chance to attack. In VS Mode, as the vast majority of high-damage output weapons are magical, this is an optimal pairing with the Black Crystal when going for a pure-defense compo setup. For attacks of type Poison, Ice or Freeze, both the AT of the attack and the time of effect are reduced. Note: For attacks of type Fire or Thunder, the damage taken is reduced. The crystal can be generally better than the Red Crystal.Įffect explanation: Reduces the damage dealt to this character by magical attacks and their time of effect on this character by a certain percentage of it's current value. For example, if a Yellow Crystal 1 is equipped for a Gladiator, and a nearby Priest has 30% Aura AT, the character AT of the Gladiator increases by about 56% (computed with factors: 120% × 130% = 1.2 × 1.3 = 1.56 = 156%). The bonus multiplies with Aura AT of one or more Priests. Note: This crystal does not affect elemental damage. The AT bonus from this crystal can be boosted by the Priest's AT aura.Įffect explanation: Increases both minimum and maximum AT of the character by a certain percentage of its current value. Note: This Crystal does not affect magical damage. Overall, the Black Crystal is the best investment for most situations, since it works against both types of attacks, and significantly reduces the impact of high damage, frequent attacks.Ĭomposition restriction: gloves, swords, bows, guns, whips or ringsĮffect explanation: Increases the minimum and maximum AT of the character by a certain amount. In VS Mode, the LV6 version is capable of essentially nullifying the Boxer's Needle Claw 6, greatly hampering any of the Whipper's "Thorn" series weapons, and almost halving the effect of the Angel's Quick Chakram 6.
Magical attacks of the same damage are best suited for the Purple Crystal, and higher damages are best with the Black Crystal. Standard physical attacks between 2 and 20 are best with the Silver Crystal, since it reduces the average hit the most. Attacks of high repetition, either magical or physical, that deal one damage per hit are best with a Black Crystal, because it can reduce average damage per hit below one.
Note: When deciding whether to have a Black, Silver or Purple Crystal for character defense, the preference is circumstantial. Damage of projectiles cannot be reduced below 1. This applies to physical as well as magical attacks, but status ailments such as slow, poison or freeze are unaffected by this.Įffect explanation: Decreases the damage dealt to this character by projectiles. This is represented by a pink "0" damage number. Black Crystal LevelĮffect explanation: Whenever an enemy attacks this character, there is a chance that all of the damage dealt will be nullified. The pink number "0" shows that the attack of an enemy has been blocked recently by using a Black Crystal.