Relic Upgrades

[Ferret]

Next up on the menu: Relic Upgrades!

Relic Upgrades are summoner-specific abilities that alter various aspects of how the summoner interacts with their summoned minions and the varied environments (haha, one day ) of the Tower.

Prior to the implementation of Relic Upgrades, each relic has been credited with the Stock Expand I and Stock Expand II upgrades, which each increase the stable size of a relic by 1. These will be lost once Relic Upgrades are implemented, dropping each starting relic to 6 stable slots.

Instead, each starting relic will have two of the new Relic Upgrades:

Titan's Fist
The Fist favors those whose strength wasn't enough, an offers a rather direct solution to human frailty: taking the form of a demon! Choose your new form carefully: assuming a new form is costly, and every demon has its weaknesses. Efficient Fusion lets you remake your allies too, benefiting them... or yourself, if you then take their newly modified form as your own!
1: Assume Form (Spend credits and sacrifice an ally to copy their HP modifier, Speed modifier, and resistances to yourself.)
2: Efficient Fusion (Reduces the Credits cost of Fuse Demons.)

Crown of Glory
Users of the Crown of Glory are intended to lead their allies from the front... but melee combat proves dangerous for anyone, much less a summoner distracted with the need to Summon and Dismiss allies. The Crown relieves the summoner of these burdens by making both Summon and Dismiss free actions, leaving the summoner more time to deal with the foes in front of him or her.
1: Quick Summon (Summon is a free action, but has a Summon (1) cooldown.)
2: Quick Dismiss (Dismiss is a free action, but has a Dismiss (1) cooldown.)

Orb of Power
The Orb is all about learning powerful abilities as quickly as possible, and its new upgrades support that. Though neither ability mentions Fusion directly, frequent use of Fuse Demons is the best way to take advantage of it: you might get good abilities worth Translating, and even if you don't, you can always Transpose Soul to snag one of your choice.
1: Translator (Removes the Copy Ability cost increase for copying to the summoner.)
2: Transpose Soul (Spend credits and sacrifice an ally to choose and learn one bonus ability their passed or active modifier can grant.)

Eye of the Dragon
Dragons like collecting a hoard of treasure, and the Eye of the Dragon relic shares this trait. With the Eye, you'll find more items and Credits than most summoners, giving you additional resources you can put to a variety of uses.
1: Item Sense (Detect items on the map. When a level is fully explored, may reveal hidden items.)
2: S.E.P.I. (Generates Credits each time you enter a new floor.)

Hand of the Dead
By far the least pleasant of the relics, the Hand gains power by merciless Deletion of your own allies. Whether you need a quick snack in combat or have no further use for a demon and would rather have some Credits, the Hand finds new ways to use old friends.
1: Consume (Delete Demon now restores your HP and SP based on levels the demon has gained since recruitment.)
2: Recycle (Delete Demon now provides Credits based on the levels the demon has gained since recruitment.)

Heart of Faith
The Heart reveals the true destiny of its summoner's allies: the power of Revelation can rapidly provide access to new abilities, which Copy Ability can in turn spread around the rest of the party. Nightingale helps the summoner and their chosen disciples overcome tougher opposition by getting injured or tired demons ready to fight again as soon as possible.
1: Revelation: (Spend credits to have a Demon learn a random bonus ability its passed or active modifier can grant.)
2: Nightingale: (Increases HP, SP, and status recovery rates for inactive demons.)

Vodun Mask
The mysterious users of the Mask tend to prefer to stay back from the fray, which their relic's extended Summoning range helps them do. Enemy Sense not only allows them to see what's coming, but its secondary function provides extra opportunities to earn experience and allies.
1: Enemy Sense (Detect enemies on the map. When a level is fully explored, may reveal hidden enemies.)
2: Summon Extend I (+3 range when using Summon.)


Losing 2 stable slots is going to be a bit rough: you will need to learn to extract similar or greater value from the starting Relic Upgrades each relic provides in order to make up for the loss.

Of course, there is further compensation: relic upgrades don't stop with the 2 you start with. I'm still deciding which mechanic for it I like better, but there will be a way to gain further relic upgrades as you progress. After all, I'm sure some of you will want Stock Expand I and II back.

Stay tuned for more information soon.

P.S.: Enemy summoners will benefit from these too, of course.

[wizzzargh]

Ah man, these sound REALLY cool, now I'm just going to be jonesing for the Relic Upgrade build instead of truly enjoying 5/3

[Ferret]

That is a thing that happens. I can literally watch my plays/day drop when I announce new features. Part of why this one is only on the forum right now

[ayayaya]

Looking forward to these upcoming changes! I'll get back to Demon once I'm done playing in the DCSS tourney.

[Ferret]

Fair enough. Even I have taken a couple days off of working on Demon for some of the DCSS tournaments, though not this time.

[Gaswafers]

The crown abilities address one of the issues with fighter summoners(managing demons in combat), but there's another issue: if your fighter demons are not well suited to the opponents, you can use a different one. If your summoner isn't well suited, he can't be swapped out. Am I just overestimating this problem though?

[Ferret]

Welll... theoretically, that can be an issue for many builds, not just melees, but there are some ways around it.

1) The most straightforward way is let your demons do the work and focus on managing their effort. True, that puts you down a guy, but there's still your 3 allies + several backups in your stable versus the enemy group. If you've made some strong allies using Copy Ability/Fuse Demon, they may be able to pull through without you, or at least kill whatever it is that it making it dangerous for you to engage.

2) Items. Items tend to have long range and strong effects. You can use one or two to soften up a nasty encounter your abilities/defenses aren't appropriate for. Of course, there aren't an infinite supply of these, but it is an option.

3) Off-spec ranged support abilities. Including one off-spec support ability you can use from safety to give you something to do when either your main package isn't the best idea or when your weaknesses will get you in trouble can help too. Buff abilities are great for this since they don't require any specific stats, and thus can be used by any build. Even just knowing Might or Haste can give you something useful to throw on your allies during times when you can't make use of your main strategy. Status cleaners can also be useful for this, but tend to be a bit more situational. Draw Wounds is the off-beat choice: even with low Magic, it can work well since it costs 0 SP, is a free action, and you don't necessarily want it moving too many HP per cast anyway.