Dev's Notes: Hex Education 2

Dev's Notes: Hex Education Part Two

Another week, another little dev-blog to assure everyone that some sort of progress is being made on the next big update. In this one I wanted to talk about party member upgrades. Specifically, Ria. As you may know, you don't learn skills in Unborn Daughter through levelling up. Dorothy is entirely dependent on her blue magic to gain skills and all of the other party members have fairly static skill-sets and can mostly only pick up new skills through the use of equippable Skill Tomes.
Well, no longer! In addition to the versatility that their two Tome slots give them, your party members will also be acquiring new skills in the coming update.

The area of focus in Hex Education, Low Kallech, is a much harsher and harder place than any plot-relevant area before it. But it is also a place where resolve can be hardened and potentials realized. As you progress through various Low Kallech dungeons and zones, your formerly static party members will unlock new Skills of their own. These unlocks are tied to specific plot events and locations to explore so they won't happen all at once but by the time you're leaving these wretched ruins, every one of your allies should be much more versatile.
So let's talk about Ria and what she might have to look forward to in Low Kallech.

Ria is a pretty simple character and intentionally so. In the earlygame when the party is just Dorothy and her, her simple strength serves to babysit a stat-deficient Dorothy who has yet to learn any significant skills. You don't have to jump through any hoops to use Ria, she's just good.
And while Low Kallech serves as a place where every character gains a new level of mechanical complexity, I want Ria to stay true to these roots even as her playstyle expands. I'm hoping that these additional skills continue to maintain her essential Ria-ness.

That said, did you know that Ria can play at being a wizard too? She does have access to Magic skills after all, it'd be crazy to never use them. This is where Slimespittle comes in, a magical attack that deals elemental Water damage and inflicts Slimed on the target. The damage of it scales with Ria's M.ATK, which isn't great, but it also scales with the amount of TP she currently has stored! It doesn't cost TP but it cares about how much she has. This type of skill isn't Ria's usual forte but in a place that has a lot of ghosts with Physical resistances, she has to make do.

But it wouldn't be Ria if she didn't mostly care about pummelling people to death, resistances or no resistances. So meet another skill that she can unlock in Low Kallech: Fury. Fury mirrors Ria's traditional Overclock in that it costs 3% of her max MP and HP but it also costs 20 TP, making it the very first triple-cost skill in the game! Using Fury puts Ria into a new state called Haze, a stacking status whose stacks increase every time she strikes a foe with Physical damage. She can have up to ten Haze stacks at a time and every single stack of Haze increases her Physical damage by an additional 10% when dealt. It's great for long fights and lets Ria build up her damage without succumbing entirely to Boiling Blood. Or you could combine Fury and Boiling Blood for some truly absurd numbers.
This also comes with a Special skill called Haze Barrage. This skill is paired with Fury, you couldn't have one without the other. It's also pretty simple. Activating Haze Barrage calls upon Ria to use one of her most powerful starting skills, Split-Fist, but without having to pay Split-Fist's usual HP or TP costs! So what does it cost then? Haze. Haze Barrage costs 5 stacks of Haze to use and the three hits that result from the skill don't give Ria any Haze in return.

And finally, what could possibly be more 'Ria' than Passive Skills? Ria starts the game with a pretty formidable passive but depending on what you do in Low Kallech, she can end up with more.
The first is Seething, which is short and sweet. Whenever Ria is below 50% of her max HP, Seething activates and gives her a +20% bonus to her damage. Naturally this stacks with other effects like Boiling Blood or Haze. Naturally.

The second Passive that can be unlocked and the final skill Ria may obtain from Low Kallech is Your Guide. The first time Ria would take lethal damage in a fight, she's dropped to 1 HP instead! However, this only works if Dorothy is in the party and isn't Downed. If Dorothy has already lost, Ria cannot make use of this.

Thank you for reading and I hope you've all been having a splendid start to 2022.