Arcane Ward 1.2.3 Experimental

1.2.3 playtest fixes

This build is a focused correction pass from live testing. Each wand now owns its spell school: Fire uses the vanilla Staff of Embers projectile/animation, Frost uses the vanilla Staff of Frost rapid-fire projectile/animation, Lightning uses the Dundr-style blast, and Blood uses the Staff of Frost channel animation with Blood damage/lifesteal VFX. Wands are LMB-only and do not require a Focus to determine their spell.

Wand visuals again use only the intended half-size StaffShield model; the inherited full-size model/light is hidden so the glow follows the orb correctly. Fire remains orange and Blood remains the default red. Fire/Frost/Lightning damage scales from a deliberately modest Elemental Magic baseline toward the existing endgame ceiling.

The Arcane Nord Shield is now 25% smaller, the Greatshield is 20% larger than its previous experimental size, and their material/texture sets are swapped while retaining their respective shield meshes.

Groundbreaker now supplies pickaxe damage/tool tier/skill during the Sledge MMB terrain strike. Returning Hammer/Spear throws reserve their carried weight while airborne and retry re-equipping after return so temporary inventory removal should no longer create pickup/overweight surprises or leave the weapon unequipped. The Hammer flight visual also receives an additional configurable 90-degree roll.

The ZNet diagnostic log from the prior test showed orphaned vfx_BloodHit views and old Frost-chill cosmetic views. 1.2.3 no longer clones either networked VFX root for local cosmetics; it creates network-free local particle systems instead. The same release also tightens the remaining local projectile/lightning cosmetic paths so they are sanitized before activation rather than allowing a cosmetic clone to retain network/gameplay components.

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 for character/world continuity, 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 may change substantially before reaching stable. Back up important worlds/characters and report anything broken, exploitable, unclear, or unfun.

Focus redesign

Arcane weapons get their magical identity from the equipped Focus.

• Fire Focus — Fire empowerment and Fire parry effects; trains Elemental Magic. Fire bubble/VFX identity is orange.
• Frost Focus — Frost empowerment/control and Frost parry effects; trains Elemental Magic.
• Lightning Focus — Lightning empowerment/control. Funded hits add small knockback, parries produce a stronger outward discharge, and hits against already-staggered enemies re-stagger them with the full Himminafl lightning-strike VFX. Trains Elemental Magic.
• Blood Focus — funded hits add Blood/Spirit damage and lifesteal; parries restore more health. Blood uses the original red visual identity.

All four Focuses use the Wishbone physical model/utility slot, but the vanilla Wishbone treasure/silver detection effect is explicitly removed. The four user-supplied Focus icons are embedded directly into the mod.

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 during a cleave, remaining enemies receive physical damage only and no Focus VFX/effect.

Blood defaults to +2 Spirit damage and +1 HP per funded enemy hit, doubled to +4 damage / +2 HP for two-handed melee. Blood parries restore 5 HP, or 10 HP with a two-handed melee weapon. Blood uses a guaranteed-local blood particle burst that borrows the vanilla vfx_BloodHit material without cloning its networked root.

Blood Magic progression

Blood Magic gains a tiny amount of skill-use from HP actually restored, not merely from a heal being requested. The default is 0.01 skill-use per HP actually gained. Healing clipped by maximum health only counts the HP that was genuinely restored. Blood Wand damaging ticks also grant a very small additional use amount so the spell can still train while the player is at full health.

Wand casting

The former Ward/Staff-of-Protection visual items are repurposed as main-hand Arcane Wands. Direct spells use primary attack (LMB). Arcane Wands intentionally have no MMB/secondary attack.

Each Wand has a fixed spell school; the equipped Focus does not change a Wand's spell:

• Arcane Fire Wand: LMB fires the vanilla Staff of Embers projectile/VFX with the vanilla staff attack animation.
• Arcane Frost Wand: hold LMB for the vanilla Staff of Frost rapid shard channel. Frost damage retains Valheim's normal frost slowing behavior.
• Arcane Lightning Wand: LMB fires the Dundr-style close-range lightning blast.
• Arcane Blood Wand: hold LMB for the high-Eitr Blood Magic lifesteal channel. Releasing LMB ends it immediately, and it also stops when the next Eitr tick cannot be funded.

The Arcane Fire Wand is recolored orange. The Arcane Blood Wand keeps the original StaffShield red color. The Blood Wand spawn ID is ArcaneBloodWand. It also uses a dedicated custom Blood Wand inventory/crafting icon.

Blood Wand defaults

The Blood channel is deliberately Eitr-hungry: 5 Eitr every 0.20 seconds (25 Eitr/sec) by default, with an 18 m range. Each successful hostile-target tick deals 6 + 0.06 per Blood Magic level Spirit damage and requests 1 + 0.02 per Blood Magic level HP back, capped by actual damage dealt and missing health. At Blood Magic 100 this is 12 damage and up to 3 HP returned per successful tick. Damage, lifesteal, range, interval, Eitr cost, and XP rates are configurable.

Successful Blood Wand hits use a visible blood/bleeding particle burst. It borrows only the vanilla vfx_BloodHit particle material; the networked vanilla root is never instantiated, so this local effect cannot register a ZDO.

Magical returning throws

Arcane Spear and Arcane Hammer MMB require the configurable up-front Arcane Throw launch cost (5 Eitr default). If the launch cost cannot be paid, the weapon does not leave the hand. Launch/return magic and the Focus effect on impact are separate costs.

• Arcane Spear: empowered returning throw with 1.15× Nord-spear launch speed and 0.45× gravity by default. It damages and passes through unique hostile enemies, spending 2 Eitr per enemy pierced to keep flying. Terrain, structures, water, friendlies/non-enemies, or insufficient penetration Eitr stop the flight and trigger return.
• Arcane Hammer: returning short-range MMB throw with heavier gravity than the spear.

Physical projectile damage still lands when the per-target Focus effect cannot be funded.

Durability and Eitr repair

Arcane weapons retain normal Valheim durability wear. While a supported Arcane weapon or Arcane Wand is equipped and damaged, it slowly repairs itself using Eitr; a Focus does not need to be equipped. Default passive repair is 1 durability for 1 Eitr every 2 seconds.

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 consumes Eitr while protecting and is a short parry reward rather than permanent protection.

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

Arcane Nord shields

• Arcane Nord Buckler (ArcaneNordBuckler) — successful parry gives +20% movement speed for 3 seconds instead of a bubble.
• Arcane Nord Shield (ArcaneNordShield) — balanced; visual reduced to 75% of its previous size; parry gives the standard 3-second 360° bubble.
• Arcane Nord Greatshield (ArcaneNordGreatshield) — 180° frontal block arc; parry gives a 6-second 360° bubble. Its visual is 0.60× the stock tower-shield size (20% larger than the previous 0.50× experimental scale). The regular and Greatshield material sets are intentionally swapped while their meshes stay distinct.

Shield blocks continue to train Blocking. Elemental Focus parry effects train Elemental Magic; Blood progression is tied to actual health restored.

Other weapon changes

• Arcane Blade / sword: native sword MMB lunge restored.
• Arcane Knife: true knife again: Knives-scaled physical damage, native combo, and native MMB leap. It no longer acts as a wand.
• 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/Blood behavior from the equipped Focus.

Testing priorities

Please especially test: custom Focus icons; no Wishbone pings while a Focus is equipped; LMB-only wand input; Fire Wand orange visuals; Blood Wand red visuals/channel stop-on-release/stop-on-empty-Eitr; Blood damage, lifesteal and Blood Magic scaling; actual-healing XP at full vs injured health; bleeding VFX; multiplayer/ZNet behavior; per-target Focus funding; physical-only hits at low Eitr; passive repair; parry detection/bubbles; shield scale/material swap; Groundbreaker terrain/mining; Lightning stagger-punish behavior; and returning spear/hammer behavior.

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.