Arcane Ward 1.2.1 Experimental

Separate Thunderstore package: this experimental build publishes as ArcaneWard_Experimental and uses the separate BepInEx plugin identity torvios.arcaneWard.experimental. It is intended for playtesting independently from the stable Arcane Ward listing.

Use a separate Thunderstore/r2modman profile. Do not enable stable Arcane Ward and Arcane Ward Experimental at the same time. The two packages intentionally share many in-game prefab IDs so characters/worlds can move between stable and experimental builds, and co-loading them can cause duplicate registrations.

This experimental branch exists for playtesting new features, mechanics, balance changes, and redesigns while Arcane Ward is actively developed and matured. Features in this package may change substantially before they reach the stable release. Back up important worlds/characters and report anything that feels broken, exploitable, unclear, or simply unfun.

Focus redesign

Arcane weapons now get their magical identity from the equipped Focus rather than from a particular weapon or Ward.

• Fire Focus — Fire empowerment; Fire parries train Elemental Magic. Fire bubble/VFX palette is now orange.
• Frost Focus — Frost empowerment/control; Frost parries train Elemental Magic.
• Lightning Focus — Lightning empowerment/control; funded hits add a small knockback, Lightning parries create a stronger outward discharge, and funded hits against already-staggered enemies re-stagger them with the full Himminafl secondary lightning-strike VFX. Lightning parries train Elemental Magic.
• Blood Focus — attacks restore a small amount of HP; parries restore more and train Blood Magic. Blood uses the original red bubble palette.

Focus weapon effects are funded per enemy hit. Physical damage always lands regardless of Eitr. Each enemy that receives Fire/Frost/Lightning/Blood empowerment costs Eitr independently; if Eitr runs out partway through a cleave, remaining enemies receive physical damage only and no Focus VFX/effect.

Magical returning throws are different from ordinary attacks: Arcane Spear and Arcane Hammer MMB require the configurable up-front Arcane Throw launch cost (5 Eitr default). If that cost cannot be paid, the weapon does not leave your hand. The launch/return magic and the Focus effect on impact are separate costs.

Blood defaults to +2 spirit damage and +1 HP per funded enemy hit, doubled to +4 damage / +2 HP for two-handed melee. Successful Blood parries restore 5 HP, or 10 HP with a two-handed melee weapon. Blood uses vanilla vfx_BloodHit on funded enemy hits. Bows and crossbows do not receive the two-handed multiplier.

Durability and Eitr repair

Arcane weapons retain normal Valheim durability wear on weapon use/hits. While any supported Arcane weapon or Arcane Wand is equipped and damaged, it slowly repairs itself using Eitr; a Focus does not need to be equipped for repair to work. The experimental default is 1 durability for 1 Eitr every 2 seconds; repair stops when the weapon is full or Eitr cannot fund the next point.

Parry protection

Successful Arcane parries trigger the equipped Focus's full parry effect. Most Arcane weapons also gain a 3-second 360-degree Focus-colored protection bubble after a successful parry. The bubble is intended as a short defensive reward, not permanent protection.

Arcane blocking now uses both normal stamina and Eitr by default. The old Eitr-replaces-stamina behavior remains available as a compatibility config toggle.

Arcane Nord shields

Three Deep North shield variants are included:

• Arcane Nord Buckler (ArcaneNordBuckler) — successful parry gives +20% movement speed for 3 seconds instead of a bubble.
• Arcane Nord Shield (ArcaneNordShield) — balanced shield; parry gives the standard 3-second 360° bubble.
• Arcane Nord Greatshield (ArcaneNordGreatshield) — 180° frontal block arc; parry gives a 6-second 360° bubble. Its equipped model is reduced to roughly half the stock Greatshield scale so it remains large without dominating the character model.

Shield blocks continue to train Blocking. Focus parry effects train the appropriate magic school.

Weapon changes

• Arcane Blade / sword: native sword MMB lunge restored. Direct spellcasting is no longer assigned to the knife/sword secondary.
• Arcane Knife: remains a true knife: Knives-scaled physical damage, native combo, and native MMB leap. Its equipped Focus augments funded hits, but the Knife no longer acts as a wand.
• Arcane Spear: MMB is an Eitr-gated empowered returning throw with 1.15× Nord-spear launch speed and 0.45× gravity by default. It damages and passes through hostile enemies, spending 2 Eitr per new enemy pierced to keep flying. It stops and returns when it hits terrain/structures/non-enemies or cannot fund the next penetration. Its Focus effect is a separate per-enemy Eitr purchase, so the physical spear hit still lands even when that target cannot be magically empowered.
• Arcane Hammer: returning short-range MMB throw remains, with heavier gravity than the spear. Like the spear, it requires the up-front Arcane Throw Eitr cost before it can leave the hand; Focus magic on impact is funded separately.
• Arcane Sledge: MMB Groundbreaker uses pickaxe-style terrain damage beneath the impact while the normal sledge attack remains the combat AoE.
• Other supported Arcane weapons inherit Fire/Frost/Lightning from the equipped Focus. Blood Focus replaces elemental augmentation with its sustain effect.

Wand casting

The former Ward/Staff-of-Protection visual items are repurposed as main-hand Arcane Wands. Standing MMB casting uses the equipped Focus to select the ranged spell instead of treating the Arcane Knife as a wand. The knife keeps its native weapon identity.

Testing priorities

Please pay particular attention to multiplayer/ZNet behavior, per-target Eitr funding, physical-only hits at low Eitr, Focus VFX stopping when a target cannot be funded, Blood multi-target lifesteal/VFX, passive Eitr repair, parry detection, bubble timing/directionality, shield arcs, Greatshield model scale, Groundbreaker terrain damage, Lightning knockback/stagger-punish behavior, and thrown-weapon behavior. For the Arcane Spear specifically, test multi-enemy piercing, duplicate-collider protection, terrain/non-enemy stopping, low-Eitr return, and reliable return after misses.

1.2.3 Experimental

Wand corrections

• Restored the intended half-size Wand visual and hid the inherited full-size StaffShield render/light hierarchy so the light sits on the orb again.
• Wand spell school now comes from the Wand itself, not the equipped Focus.
• Fire Wand uses the vanilla Staff of Embers projectile/VFX and staff animation on LMB.
• Frost Wand uses the vanilla Staff of Frost projectile/VFX and rapid-fire staff animation on held LMB; its frost damage retains vanilla Frost slow behavior.
• Blood Wand remains a held LMB channel, uses the Staff of Frost channel animation, and keeps Blood Magic damage/lifesteal scaling and bleeding VFX.
• Lightning Wand keeps the Dundr-style blast and its own vanilla staff attack presentation.
• Fire/Frost/Lightning damage defaults now use gentler early Elemental Magic scaling while preserving roughly the same endgame ceilings.

Shield visuals

• Arcane Nord Shield visual reduced to 75% of its prior size.
• Arcane Nord Greatshield increased from 50% to 60% of vanilla tower-shield size (20% larger than the previous experimental visual).
• Regular and Greatshield material/texture sets are swapped without swapping meshes.

Groundbreaker and returning throws

• Arcane Sledge Groundbreaker now supplies pickaxe damage, tool tier, and Pickaxes attribution during the MMB terrain/mining strike.
• Returning Spear/Hammer projectiles reserve their weapon weight while airborne so temporary item removal no longer creates artificial pickup capacity.
• Returned weapons now retry re-equipping for two seconds instead of relying on a single immediate EquipItem call.
• Arcane Hammer flight visual receives an additional configurable 90-degree roll.

ZNet safety

• Replaced local vfx_BloodHit root cloning with a new network-free particle burst that borrows only the vanilla particle material.
• Replaced Frost-chill root cloning with a network-free local frost particle effect.
• Hardened remaining local projectile/lightning cosmetics so network/gameplay components are stripped before activation wherever a visual clone is still needed.
• These changes target the orphaned Blood/Frost ZNetView entries seen in the 1.2.2 diagnostic log.

1.2.2 Experimental

Focus and wand polish

• Added the four user-supplied custom Focus icons and embedded them directly in the DLL.
• Fire/Frost/Lightning/Blood Focuses still use the Wishbone model/utility slot, but the inherited Wishbone treasure/silver detection status effect is now removed.
• Added ArcaneBloodWand; it keeps the original red StaffShield visual identity.
• Added the user-supplied custom Blood Wand inventory/crafting icon.
• Recolored the Arcane Fire Wand to a clearly orange palette so red is reserved for Blood.
• Arcane Wands now cast only with primary attack (LMB) and intentionally have no MMB/secondary attack.
• Frost channel, Fire cast, and Lightning blast were moved from the old MMB runtime to LMB.

Blood Wand

• Added a true hold-to-channel Blood spell. Releasing LMB ends the channel immediately; insufficient Eitr ends it before the next pulse.
• Default channel economy is 5 Eitr every 0.20s (25 Eitr/sec), with an 18m range.
• Blood Wand damage scales with Blood Magic: 6 base + 0.06 per skill level by default.
• Blood Wand lifesteal scales with Blood Magic: 1 HP + 0.02 per skill level by default, capped by actual damage and missing health.
• Successful ticks use the vanilla vfx_BloodHit bleeding effect, cloned as a pre-sanitized local cosmetic to avoid ZDO/network registration.
• Blood Wand ticks award a tiny damage-use amount of Blood Magic XP, plus additional XP based on HP actually restored.

Blood Magic progression

• Blood Focus weapon-hit and parry XP is now based on actual HP restored rather than requested healing.
• Default healing progression is 0.01 Blood Magic skill-use per HP genuinely gained; healing clipped by max health does not over-award XP.
• Blood Focus spear throws no longer get a separate arbitrary Blood Magic throw award; their lifesteal healing drives Blood progression.

1.2.1 Experimental

This is the current separately published Arcane Ward Experimental playtest package. Version 1.2.1 supersedes the already-published 1.2.0 package so Thunderstore can accept the updated build under the same package name. It is intentionally isolated from the stable Thunderstore listing so new mechanics can be tested without replacing the stable release.

Focus combat redesign

• Fire, Frost, Lightning, and Blood Focuses now determine the magical augmentation of supported Arcane weapons.
• Physical weapon damage always applies, even with no Eitr.
• Focus magic is funded per enemy hit. Each enemy that actually receives a Focus effect costs Eitr independently.
• If Eitr runs out during a multi-target attack, remaining targets take physical damage only and receive no Focus effect or Focus VFX.
• Fire uses an orange visual identity; Blood uses the original red identity.
• Blood Focus adds a small per-target spirit-damage bonus and lifesteal. Two-handed melee doubles both values.
• Blood parries heal more and train Blood Magic; elemental Focus parries train Elemental Magic.
• Funded Lightning weapon hits now add a small configurable knockback.
• Lightning parry discharge uses a substantially stronger configurable outward push.
• A funded Lightning hit against an enemy that is already staggered re-staggers that enemy (with a short per-target cooldown) and uses the full Himminafl secondary lightning-strike VFX rather than the ordinary electrified-hit feedback.

Blocking and parries

• Arcane blocking now uses normal stamina and Eitr by default.
• Successful parries trigger the equipped Focus's full parry effect.
• Most Arcane parries grant a 3-second Focus-colored 360-degree protection bubble.
• Arcane Nord Buckler replaces the bubble with a short movement-speed boost.
• Arcane Nord Shield uses the standard 3-second bubble.
• Arcane Nord Greatshield has a 180-degree normal block arc and a 6-second parry bubble.
• Greatshield equipped model scale is reduced to roughly half of the stock model size.

Weapons and casting

• Former Ward/Staff-of-Protection visual items are repurposed as main-hand Arcane Wands for direct ranged Focus casting.
• Arcane Blade restores the native sword MMB lunge.
• Arcane Spear now owns the old empowered throw identity: 1.15× launch speed and 0.45× gravity by default, with the sword restored to its native lunge.
• Arcane Spear throw now pierces unique hostile enemies. Each penetration costs 2 Eitr by default; insufficient Eitr stops the flight and returns the spear. Terrain, structures, water, friendlies, and other non-enemy collisions also stop and return it.
• Arcane Spear and Arcane Hammer throws require the up-front magical launch Eitr cost before they can leave the hand; Focus empowerment on impact remains a separate per-target Eitr cost.
• Thrown spear/hammer hits now carry their launch-time Focus context into damage resolution so Focus effects do not depend on whichever item is equipped when the projectile lands.
• Arcane Hammer retains its returning short-range MMB throw with heavier gravity than the spear.
• Arcane Sledge gains the MMB Groundbreaker terrain/mining attack.
• Bow/crossbow and the rest of the supported Arcane arsenal use the equipped Focus for magical augmentation.

Durability

• Arcane weapons retain normal durability wear.
• The currently equipped damaged Arcane weapon slowly repairs itself by consuming Eitr. Repair now covers the Blade, Knife, Wands, and the rest of the supported Arcane arsenal and does not require a Focus to be equipped.
• Default passive repair is 1 durability for 1 Eitr every 2 seconds.

Release cleanup

• Package identity is separate from stable: ArcaneWard_Experimental.
• BepInEx identity is separate: torvios.arcaneWard.experimental.
• DLL is separate: ArcaneWardExperimental.dll.
• Removed the superseded inert block patch that produced harmless compiler warnings.
• Updated the builder banner and complete post-build spawn/test list.
• Corrected stale Focus descriptions from the earlier two-handed-only prototype.
• Removed the Knife's obsolete wand-casting description/runtime path: the Knife keeps its native combo/leap and Knives-scaled physical damage, while direct Focus spells belong to Arcane Wands.
• Consolidated passive Eitr repair into one system so Blade/Knife/Wands/arsenal weapons do not double-repair and do not require a Focus merely to self-repair.
• Stable and experimental packages should be used in separate Thunderstore/r2modman profiles because they intentionally share many in-game prefab IDs for save/character continuity.