This guide covers all the details on the skills and stats you will need when creating your character in Heroes of Hammerwatch 2.
How Skills and Stats Work
Here are the details on how certain skills and stats work and how they relate to your character build:
Attributes
The Attributes of your character are Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Focus, and Vitality
Primary Attribute
- Your class determines your primary attribute with this determine your spell power. Spell power is 1 point per point in your primary attribute. Classes have the following primary attributes
- Paladin/Warrior: Strength
- Rogue/Ranger: Dexterity
- Wizard/Warlock/Sorcerer: Intelligence
Currently no class utilizes Focus or Vitality and these are generally considered secondary/tertiary attributes.
Attributes Explained
Strength
- Strength grants a direct 1 armor per point. Strength currenty does nothing else unless its your primary attribute.
Dexterity
- Each point of dexterity grants 1% weapon crit damage. It also grants Critical chance, though I currently don’t know the exact rate. It seems there’s a diminishing return as 60 points of dexterity grants about 11% critical chance, but 170 only grants +20%, despite being over double the amount.
Intelligence
- Each point of intelligence grants 1% spell critical damage. The critical chance for spells is seemingly the same formula as dexterity; more testing would be needed to chart out its growth.
Focus
- Each point of focus raises your maximum MP by 5 points and your mana regeneration by 0.1.
Vitality
- Each point of Vitality raises your maximum HP by 5 points and your health regen by about 0.05 points, meaning you won’t see an increase in health regen on odd-numbered points.
- Its also important to mention it seems your health regen has a base 1 point; the game will say you have +3 from vitality then claim under the health regen section to have 4 from attributes, suggesting its including base health regen.
Weapon Vs Spell
A somewhat confusing aspect for some seems to be Weapon Damage, Spell Damage, Weapon Power, and Spell Power.
Best way to simplify this is to say Weapon Damage only works on your Left/Right click (or whatever the equivalent weapon swing is for other control methods); while prettymuch everything else is spell power.
Weapon Damage
Weapon damage is generally just the damage your equipped weapon does. This is further modified by the weapon type as some weapons do 100% of their weapon damage, while others may go as low as 40%.
Weapon Power
Each point of Weapon Power grants 0.5% increased damage for your weapon damage.
Weapon power has no attribute that boosts it and rather its only base sources of it come from your levels in Ranger (for the title bonus); and your blacksmith upgrades (which seems to cap at +90, or 45% more damage). Some armor enchantments and trinkets can further boost this value.
It is important to mention but anything generated by a Wand, Book, or Staff is still weapon damage and subject to this value, not spell power. This means outside of the critical granted by the dexterity attribute there are no attributes that boost the damage of these types of weapons, same with swords, bows, etc.
Spell Damage
This is generally the flat value listed on your spell. All active skills not tied to your weapon are spells, this includes the axe throw of a warrior, knife throw of a rogue, or mark of the ranger. Despite seeming like martial abilities they only determine their damage by the rank of the skill you have invested for their base value rather than equipped weapons damage. This is then further boosted by spell power.
Spell Power
Similar to weapon power you gain 0.5% increase spell damage per point of spell power. Unlike weapon power, your spell power scales based on your points invested in your class’s primary attribute at 1 spell power per point.
This generally puts intelligence characters in a fairly powerful spot as their intelligence will offer spell power, spell critical damage, and spell critical chance; though obviously this means a higher reliance on spells and mana.
Penetration
Attributes exist for Armor and Elemental penetration. There are not many sources of this. Class skills can grant this, along with some trinkets. Generally though your weapon can be enchanted with this value.
While its not entirely transparent how it works, its generally assumed your penetration is a flat reduction to a target’s armor or resistance value, and by extension will reduce the % damage reduction they have against this attack. No stat sheets exist for enemies so its difficult to determine how much resistances your average foe has, though it seems to be a noticeable value on the elemental ball enemies in the last zone.
Multipliers
These exists as miscelaneous modifiers on top of the general weapon/spell % increase. These tend to be either increases to all damage types or to a specific damage type, such as an increase to Physical or Lighting damage.
These are displayed assuming a base value is 100%, thus if you have a 10% increase to fire it will be listed here as 110%.
Attack Damage
Its worth noting i’ve also seen “Attack Damage” Enchantments on armor. This doesn’t appear on your stats page at all even when equipped. Best i can tell this is a specific boost to weapon hits via their attacks which is their left and right click damaging moves.
The descriptors get a little inconsistent here as i’ve seen “Attack” and “Skill” used to describe what a weapon can do; which is not to be confused with “Spells” which are all your class abilities.
Defenses
Armor and Resistances
Defenses consist of Armor and the Fire, Ice, Lighting, and Poison resistances. These represent the damage reduction or gain for a specific damage type.
Defenses can be reduced to negative via NG+ modifiers or shadow curse, leading to these values being a damage increase rather than a reduction.
Armor and Resistances seem to behave in a similar pattern, having a diminishing return as you stack more of it to determine how much damage you reduce of that type, with Armor representing physical damage reduction, while each element affecting that type of damage.
When a resistance goes negative the formula seems to become far more flag with each point of negative resistance is +0.25% damage increase for the damage type.
Sources of Armor
- Attributes: Each point of strength gains 1 armor
- Blacksmith Upgrade: +60 baseline armor can be gained here.
- Equipment: Obviously the armor you wear will grant some amount of armor, obviously the amount will depend on item level and type (Plate giving more than cloth)
UNCONFIRMED
As of right now players are reporting that Armor increases how much damage lightning does. This is apparently something that has seen inconsistent testing thanks to weird hit-registration with lighting attacks. Even worse is from the player’s end it has been apparently difficult to test as most enemies have low armor and instead favor larger health pools, while players tend to have increasing armor values.
Sources of Resistances
- Attributes: This is listed, but i legitimately can’t figure out where this value comes from, i swap from character to character and It seems to cap at +10, but I’ve seen it as low as +3.
- Elemental Resistance Upgrade: The magic shop grants up to +80 here (except poison which comes from the potion shop)
- Warlock Bonus: 3 to Fire, Ice, Lighting, and Poison resistance per warlock level to all characters.
- Equipment: Each piece of armor can add to the base value, and obviously trinkets can add to this such as the infused stones, rings of resistance, and a few other like the dragon scales.
Leveling warlock is a fairly solid method for raising this as a level 20 warlock is 60 extra resistances, more important as NG+ levels will reduce your resistances; and this can help if you don’t wish to dedicate armor enchantments to resistances.
Evade Chance
This represents your chance to evade a hit and take 0 damage. This default is 0 and outside of class skills, equipment, or the occasional trinket, this value generally doesn’t have much increase.
Rogue has the highest base, along with with one guaranteed evade on a cooldown, while other classes can achieve it as part of a temporary buff.
Parry Chance
This represents your ability to parry a weapon hit. This seems to work in the same way as a shield in which it only affects the “front” of you, assumedly a 180 degree arc, maybe slightly more narrow.
Parry seems to have a strange calculation, and even better the way the game displays this is not consistent. Generally you get the largest source of parry first, then each source after gets a reduced, first by half, and then to 0.425% value.
For example a pair of daggers granting 50% parry, and two pieces of gear with deflection granting 15% each. This results in 50%+7.5%+6.375% for a total of 63.875. I will note i’ve seen the game put the trinket bonus of +15% first and then apply the reductions to each after, though it still came out to the same value, so i assume there’s a simpler formula to this, and the game simply is breaking down the value individually.
Champion’s medal is a purple tier trinket that allows Parry to work from all directions, making parry a bigger defensive tools, though admittedly at the point it can drop you will see a higher rise in elemental (usually lighting) damage and thus its impact on survivability is not as large.
Damage Reduction
It is worth noting there is a global damage reduction stat in addition to your armor/resistances. Trinkets like the protective charm grant 5% damage reduction (10% if its attuned); warrior has a talent upgrade that grants 10/20/30% damage reduction as well. Armor can also have an enchantment on them to grant 5% each as well.
Casting Stats
Cast Speed
I wish i could provide some insight on this one, but this seems to be a very vague stat. As i’ve seen it described is it makes a spell come out faster, potentially reducing that half second delay between pressing the button and the spell happening.
This is so difficult to see that i haven’t been able to successfully test it, though it seems like the paladin’s charge-up spell from their specialization seems to charge to full power a little faster with this stat.
Spell Cooldown
Spell cooldown seems currently to be additive value, though sources are limited. Drinking the tavern drink for 25% and having Celerity for 15% seems to reduce my spell’s cooldown from 10s to 6s. I say seeming as without a display number i’m having to manually count the seconds from when it looks like its starting the countdown.
I would mention I think cast-speed is a factor here in that until a spell cast finished “casting” the cooldown doesn’t begin. That means when pressing the button the slight delay between pressing the button and the spell happening is effectively added to the time before the cooldown is done.
This section is a little guesswork as no UI elements seem to display these values or reflect these changes as the run goes on. But i’ve definitely stacked enough bonuses by the end of a run with the sands of time and the Minstrel’s Encore set that i nearly eliminated my spell cooldowns, so it may be possible this stat has no diminishing returns to it.
Shadow Gain
Shadow Curse
Each point of shadow curse gives a -4 penalty to Armor and Resistances. In addition to this the higher the stacks the more it reduces your character’s vision; not only darkening the screen edges, but causing enemies to begin to disappear beyond certain distance until they become fully invisible. This can become so pronounced your character may not be able to see enemies without standing next to them.
Shadow Curse Gain
I wish i could give some good info here, but unfortunately i haven’t fully figured out how this mechanic is working.
I think shadow gain % affects the shadow gain when going to the shadow spots to gain additional skills/items in trade for shadow curse. When gaining it from enemies it might represent a % chance to gain curse, as otherwise it seems unclear.
Generally when hit by a shadow attack there seems to be a chance to gain shadow curse, this isn’t guaranteed it seems, though it seems reducing the damage to 0 or evading it doesn’t help, you simply need to avoid the attack itself.
The amount gained from attacks seems to be related to your NG+ level (1 giving 1, 2 giving 2, etc..) (After the last update i seem to only be gaining +1 per attack that grants it though not sure if this was changed)
Each NG+ level increasing your shadow gain by 5%. This means pre-NG+ levels the shadow gain system works entirely as an optional system.
This can be reduced with Armor enchantments granting 20% each, a food buff granting 20%, a church blessing of 20%. The Sacred Cross giving 20%, and the holy relic set bonus giving 10% and 10% (which the sacred cross is part of). This suggests you could get your shadow gain to 0% though enough NG+ levels would eventually cut into this; and its debatable if you wish to invest that much enchantments into it.
Finally a 40% reduction via a church pyre upgrade can be gotten to grant a permanent value.
Removing Shadow Curse
Pyrse can spawn that reduce your shadow curse by half, with a minimum of -8, meaning at 8 or below shadow curse these can cure you. These generally can only spawn once per floor.
Smaller pyres exist that remove a small amount, Though the amount seems to be adjusted by NG+ value. These cannot spawn until NG+1 in which they grant a -3 to shadow curse per use, with multiple being able to spawn per floor, with two guaranteed spawning before the shadow face boss.
I will need to test further but in NG+2 these started only reducing shadow curse by -2, and I haven’t tested to see if these get further weakened in NG+3.
Benefits?
While the devs have mentioned reworking it in NG+ levels; once you get items like the Decaying Hand or Pickled eye from the shadow sources shadow curse goes from a complete detriment to becoming a risk/reward mechanic granting power or crit per shadow curse. Shadow curse has the downside that it makes you defenses lower, capable of putting you into the negatives, but with these tools can become a benefit.
Generally you want to hit a good inbetween on these, and generally i’ve found its going to depend on your class, as a Warrior or paladin might be able to swing 30+ shadow curse, while a sorcerer could be at more risk of being one shot for too much.
New Game Plus Adjustments
After the last update NG+ got a little more clear in how it works via their patchnotes.
What we know:
- Experience rewards from targets go up by 33% per NG+ level
- Enemies Base Armor and Resistances go up by 33% per NG+ level
- Enemies do 5% more base damage per New Game+
NG+ levels also reduce your armor/resistances by an amount per NG+ level. Though the rate this happens seems even more dubious now.
Previously NG+1 imparted a -199 penalty to armor, with NG+2 giving the same penalty, only increasing to -399 at NG+3. This might have been a tooltip issue though.
Now it seems NG+2 increases to -299; but NG+3 is -599 up from -399. So not sure if this is a visual bug or not.
Resistances seem less excessive each NG+ level, likely due to less readily available sources of resistances.
I will need to test more to get a general chart for this, as originally i was convinced it jumped every other NG+ level by 200, it swapped to be every level, but rather than 100, suddenly jumped by 300 points between NG+2 and NG+3, so i’ll need to play through more NG+ levels to find out.
Otherwise going up in NG+ level allows you to of course unlock the next with each increasing the max level cap of your character by 5. Going from 20, to 25 at NG+1, 30 at NG+2, and so on.
Opinion Section
Here is where i’m just going to stick some opinions that aren’t really direct facts as to not clutter the upper section.
Vitality/Focus vs Direct Mana or Health?
- From what i can tell at the same item level the game will give you slightly more HP for health or mana enchantments vs the raw stat. This said I haven’t tested this with low level gear to determine if there’s a break point for this. I would also mention a 22 item level item offered 16 vitality vs 82 health when changing between these enchantments; meaning it was between 80 health and 82 health, which the vitality also would grant 0.8 health regen, which seems like its ok for a 2 health difference.
- This will need more testing to see how this behaves and higher and higher item levels.
This is generally important as generally when upgrading you should take into account how much gaining or losing vitality will affect you versus a new piece of gear offering the direct stat. Currently it seems like the raw stat is a little more worthwhile than direct health or mana.
Strength needs a Buff
- Right now Strength seems to be in an unfortunate spot. Once you reach even NG+1 you’ll see pieces of armor with easily 60+ points of armor meaning your strength is there, but is overall a drop in the bucket of your total sources of armor.
- Paladins are alright focusing on this as much of their output is from spellpower and thus their primary attribute is a good investment.
- Warriors not as much as a decent amount of focus for the class seems to be weapon damage, which means the class would seemingly benefit from more dexterity once any prerequisites are met. Arguably if they were simply focusing on war-cry as a berserker a strong case could be made for an dual-dagger dexterity build; though meeting prerequisites for armor could be important.
I could argue that physical damage reduction isn’t a massive focus either. Its a very common damage type but the further into a run one gets the elemental resistances definitely seem to become a bigger focus.
Overall the stat feels very weak compared to all the other stats.
Weapon Damage in a Weird Spot
- Weapon damage is in a weird spot that the only attribute thats going to boost this up is more crits which means more dexterity. This means ranger/rogue are in an alright spot as their spellpower and weapon damage get boosted by investing in dexterity, while other melee classes are going to be entirely reliant on passives, trinkets, and equipment upgrades to see much improvement in this category.
- I’ve already tested a Berseker Warrior in a full dual-dagger and leather armor setup feeling way stronger than using a 2h axe.
Armor Value Barely Matters
Basically you want to keep this value positive and otherwise has very little benefit. Having tested going through a NG+ run completely naked minus my weapons i barely felt the lack of armor until the very end. Otherwise most of the dangerous damage types are the elemental.
Thus just keep up on new gear, but generally you don’t need to focus on getting armor enchantments or pumping strength to get these values up.
