Crucible of Origins: the reverse path and new controls

The Crucible of Origins changed all summer. The main thing: after defeating nine waves you can stay instead of leaving and take the reverse path, where monster strength grows up to 45 times. Controls inside a run are different now: a 12 metre dash with full invulnerability and automatic attacks without selecting a target. Cards stopped offering what is of no use to you.

The reverse path

• A new trial after the victory. Nine stages of one minute each, the waves run in reverse order and monster strength greatly exceeds that of the Lords of the Peak: from five times on the first stage to forty five on the last (17 July).
• Stage credit. A stage counts if you survived the minute and defeated the bosses. The reward for the main run is kept in any case (17 July).
• Reward. Cleared stages give up to 30 percent extra Origin material in total and 25 rating points per stage (17 July, 20 July).
• The final respect quest. At level 101 it is issued automatically: defeat Sundew, the final boss of the reverse path. Reward: the status «Son of Hell» or «Immortal», 3000 reputation and 5 Skill Atlas points (4 August).

Controls inside a run

• The dash. A short press of Shift throws the character 12 metres along the run direction, and during the dash the character is fully invulnerable. Pass through attacks and break out of a crowd (1 August).
• Attacks without a target. Physical classes received auto attack without target selection: point the camera and the character starts hitting. Magic classes cast their starting attack skill at the target ahead by themselves, and the moment you press your own skill the auto combat steps aside (1 August).
• Speed. Cooldown cards now speed up your class skills as well as the Crucible ones, and casting speed shortens the whole animation (1 August).
• The five active skills can be moved freely around the screen, and the position survives even a full restart of the game (1 September).

Monsters became dangerous

• Smart spawn. Monsters appear ahead of your movement and press you instead of trailing behind (18 July).
• Fast pursuers. Every fifth monster in a wave is faster: running away in a straight line no longer works (18 July).
• Contact damage. Monsters hurt on simple contact, not only during a swing, so standing in a crowd is dangerous (18 July).
• The second wave received a poison flea, and on the eighth wave the Fire Phoenix was replaced by the Nine Tailed Fox to unload the screen from fire effects (29 July, 5 August).

Cards

• No useless offers. A bonus already collected to its limit is not offered any more, and a frozen card does not return to the set if its bonus became useless to you. Mages, shamans and priests are no longer offered attack speed cards (15 August).
• Honest limits. Mythical cards have their caps written down: critical chance is capped, the speed boost of Heavy Shackles goes no higher than 11 metres per second, and every limit is printed on the card itself (14 July).
• Level 11 evolutions change the damage type: the heavenly branch deals magic damage, the infernal one physical. The light branch of elements raises damage to 250 percent, the dark one gives 200 percent and 10 percent to critical chance (12 July, 29 July).
• The set is not swapped. While you choose, the cards stay as they are, and the only way to refresh them is the Reforge of Fate (11 August).
• Orbs count on touch, even when you run through them at speed. The same goes for the exit portal (26 August).

Rewards and insurance

• The reward is not lost. If the map crashes or the connection drops, it is granted automatically on your next login based on the depth you reached. An interrupted run enters the chronicle with the status «Interrupted» and its depth counts towards the rating (8 July).
• The chronicle keeps the details of your last 100 runs, while the general counters still cover the whole history (15 August).
• A daily quest for killing the final boss of the Crucible (1 September).
• Origin resources bound and unbound no longer merge into one stack (19 August).

Interface and stability

• Small screens. The card selection became more compact, the collected bonus bar takes no more than four rows of seven icons and does not creep onto the minimap, and the rest hides under a counter. Bonuses are sorted by strength (24 July).
• The click no longer falls through when you press the Reforge, Vow of Exclusion and Seal of Stasis buttons, and card selection does not stick while you are stunned (20 July, 15 August).
• Stability. Crashes with large monster crowds, map failures during mass fights, getting stuck in water and dashing through walls are all fixed (14 July, 21 July, 5 August, 6 August).

All cards with descriptions are collected in the catalogue on the site, in the About the server section.

The dates in brackets are the updates the change shipped in. These news posts come out later than the changes themselves: there was simply no time to write them.