Nullcraft - Path of the Antimage

Nullcraft 0.4.0-beta: The Wheel of Six

Six new arts

Every school now has six regular arts (21 in all, counting the ultimates).

• Hush Mark (Suppression): marks one caster. The next spell it tries is torn apart: the cast fails and the caster is silenced and drained.
• Severed Call (Suppression): enemy summons nearby come apart or are crippled, and their masters are silenced.
• Anchor Seal (Suppression): a blink, teleport or ender pearl snaps the sealed enemy back to where it stood and silences it.
• Plunder (Devourer): steals an enemy's strongest blessing for yourself.
• Ballast (Devourer): hurls a flying mage to the ground. Brought down from height, it is silenced when it lands.
• Breakwater (Spellbreaker): a 7×3 wall that shatters enemy spells and silences enemies standing in it.

The loadout wheel

• The wheel now holds six arts of your choice. Parry and your ultimate have their own keys; the ultimate is on Z by default.
• Set your slots in the Codex's redesigned Arts tab, which now shows a grid by school. Slots cannot be changed in combat.
• Newly unlocked arts fill empty slots on their own.
• The HUD shows your ultimate's icon and cooldown.

New models

• The Spellbound Knight is now an empty suit of rune plate with a floating helm and gauntlets. Rune plates circle it while its ward holds.
• The Mana Leech is now a floating ribbon behind a bubble of stolen mana.

The Warden's seal wheel

• Below half its core, the Reliquary Warden hurls its seal wheel after you. On contact it deals 6 damage and silences you for 2 s.
• Parry it and it rolls back into the core, which loses a fifth of its mana and goes dark.
• Any blow knocks the wheel over.

Balance and fixes

• Hush Mark: one mark per player and 2 s of silence. The cooldown is 10 s, and after the mark fires the target can't be marked again for 5 s. It now also stops evokers' spells.
• Anchor Seal: fires once. It silences the Archmage for half as long, and a refused pearl also silences.
• Plunder: a stolen blessing is capped at level II and 15 s.
• Severed Call: also severs the Archmage's acolytes.
• Breakwater: 24 s cooldown, reduced like an ultimate's, and 3 energy per three spells broken. The wall stays in its own dimension.
• Ballast: costs 25 and silences for 1 s even on the ground.
• Quiet Sigil: now covers every Suppression art.
• Loadout: a hint appears when an art unlocks while your wheel is full.
• Seal wheel: a parry no longer destroys it, and it climbs single blocks.

Also in this release

0.2.0 and 0.3.0 were not released on their own, so their changes ship here too.

0.3.0-beta: The Rite of One Silence

The Reliquary Warden

The Arcane Construct is gone; a Reliquary Warden now guards every Rift Sanctum. It has its own model: a floating stone reliquary with a living core, orbiting glyphs, a mask and a seal wheel.

• Convergence: a 10-damage slam. Parry it to drain 15% of the core.
• Tithe Beam: pulls your energy into the core. Reflect it to drain 35% of the core and gain 15 energy.
• Hollowed: empty the core and the Warden shuts down, taking double damage. While the core is active, magic hurts it only half as much.
• Severance on a hollowed Warden rips out its Inert Core, which smelts into 3 Void Ingots.

The Rite of One Silence: choose your ultimate

Vaerin's statue has a new Ultimate tab. After the awakening and an Archmage victory, bind one of three ultimates and raise it through three ranks with knowledge and Mage Souls. Rank III needs the Coven broken.

• Absolute Null: a dome of nothing. Ranks: Hush Ledger (silence pays out as damage), Contraction (recast to collapse the dome and pull enemies in), Wider Nothing (radius 10, 45 s cooldown).
• Hollowing Brand: brand one caster to drain 6% of its magic every second. Below 10% it is Hollowed: silenced, taking +25% damage, and your Null Verdict is ready at once. Ranks: Scent, Brand Leap, Famine.
• Captive Constellation: hostile projectiles freeze in orbit around you, then fly back at whoever cast them. Ranks: Wider Sky, Chosen Star, Starfall Unmaking.
• The first rebinding is free. After that it costs 6 souls and 8 shards, at most once a day, and your ranks carry over.

A forked talent tree

• Ranks II, IV and V of every path now offer a choice of two talents, adding 18 new talents.
• Rank V is a keystone. You can hold at most two, and opposed paths exclude each other.
• Some new picks: Null Dominion, Unblinking Gaze, Glutton's Vessel, Held Riposte, Shattered Mirror, Sole Quarry, Rooted Silence and Unfixed.
• Resetting your talents now returns half of the Mage Souls you spent.

Upgrading from 0.2

• An awakened antimage keeps Absolute Null and gets a free rebinding.
• If Suppression was at rank V, Absolute Null starts at rank I.

Balance and fixes

• Silence no longer keeps the Warden shut down forever.
• Null Dominion: the Null Field's cooldown is 10 s longer and is reduced like an ultimate's (25% at most).
• Echo of Refusal: at most 6 s off per use.
• Held Riposte: lands at riposte strength.
• Captive Constellation: stars are tracked wherever they are, and Unmaking needs a real hit.
• Hollowing Brand: it works on player targets, and Nullcraft's own casters pay for casting while branded. Famine also stops Null energy regeneration.
• Return Path: it no longer works across dimensions or into walls.
• Rooted Silence: it also smothers acolytes.
• Shattered Mirror: it now splinters reflected projectiles too.
• Anchored Field: it drains source around its own center.

0.2.0-beta: Arsenal of the Rift

New weapons

• Null Glaive gives +1.5 reach and burns 7% of a target's maximum mana per hit. It breaks a spell in progress (every 4 s) and shoves the target back (every 3 s).
• Spellthief Gauntlets are very fast fists that burn 4% mana. Every 4 s a hit steals one beneficial effect from the target and gives it to you, for up to 30 s.
• Voidcleaver is a two-handed blade that burns 9% mana. Hold use to charge a Null Slam around you: 6–12 damage, 6–12% mana burn and 1.5–2.5 s of silence (8 s cooldown, needs line of sight).
• Rift Chakram is thrown and never lost. It ricochets between up to three enemies, burns 4% mana each for a sworn antimage, then flies home.

New creatures

• Spellbound Knight is a rune-armoured warrior. While its Runic Ward holds it takes half damage; Dispel, Severance or Silence shatters the ward for 10 s.
• Hexcaster is a curse-weaver. Its hexes (weakness, slowness, fatigue, wither) can be reflected back at it, and it calls packs of Mana Leeches. With Iron's Spells installed it casts real curses.
• Mana Leech comes in swarms. Each bite drinks Null energy plus Iron's and Ars mana, and Silence or a Null Field unravels it instantly.
• Arcane Construct is the elite guardian of every Rift Sanctum. Drain its mana core or silence it and it shuts down, taking double damage.
• The new creatures spawn at night and guard Rift Sanctums. They drop loot, Mage Souls and trophies, appear in daily contracts and have bestiary entries.

Ars Nouveau integration

• Ars spells cannot be cast inside an enemy antimage's Null Field. This covers players, mobs and, where PvP is on, spell turrets.
• Ars mana does not regenerate while silenced or while standing in an enemy Null Field.
• The Null Field drains nearby source jars and machines and turns the source into energy (capped).
• Ars-only recipes: a Void Ingot from Source Gems, and every rune from Ars magic essences.
• New contract target (the Wilden Guardian) and new trophy drops.

Fixes and balance

• Null Field effects never hit allies, or other players on a no-PvP server.
• Killing a Mana Leech with Silence or a Null Field now counts toward kill contracts.
• The glaive also breaks casts of the Archmage, acolytes, hexcasters and Coven sisters; the Null Field respects spawn protection.
• The bestiary now shows nine creatures.