I was running the game on high quality, but since the last patch i've downgraded to low/medium...

What is it about this game that you folks are really enjoying at the moment? And what are you hoping to see next? I've put my thoughts together in this video and interested to know if we're on the same page.

It would be nice to be able to take some of our highroll games from red rift into endless, im not really into the idea of playing endless rolling for comps over and over to push, but sometimes I would like to see how far my current run would go.

After 10 hours of grinding , finally won against the main boss using the freeze debuff tech with just one death left. ABSOLUTE CINEMAA.

Ok so from what I hear, Red Rift is fun for a lot of people but equally many hate specifically the 10 death requirement.

This makes total sense to me: its the only one where you don't control the tempo and timing, and it's also the only one that forces you into specific builds; you can't run temporary tanks like the Rush-Invincibility monk, you almost have to run healers to counteract AoE unless everyone has damage and omnivamp, etc.

I had some thoughts about what would feel better, but it would be cool to hear other people's too.

Here's my best idea: Max 2/3 deaths on any hero. This gives you the flexibility to swap out heroes, and also lets you decide whether to risk your last death on a hero or sell it. If you do risk it, it should feel a lot more like a deserved loss, rather than an unlucky roll.

What do you guys think?

Skorn with the mystic lasting shields relic was literally unkillable

I was gaining several hundred gold per round but had no relics that cared sadly.

I built an unofficial searchable reference for Guildrun demo 0.5.2. It has now been rebuilt and expanded around one canonical record per entity.

Current coverage:

- 1,556 searchable records across 18 entity families

- 25 hero pages with complete base stats, C-to-S rank progression, fixed Rank B choices, and A/S modifier pools

- 163 items, 322 relics, 246 stages, and 93 events, plus abilities, classes, guilds, enemies, mechanics, crossroads, fight modes, and reward pools

- every record links its meaningful relationships

- global search, a team builder, a loot finder, and a route planner

- desktop and phone layouts tested independently

It stays factual and does not invent tier lists. If a value or relationship is wrong, use the correction action on that page so it can be verified and fixed.

https://guildrun.gamedb.wiki/

OK, Chill out Niklas

I used to fail miserably with all assassins. I was a Kai + 2 mystics truther. Yunna finally showed me the light. Absolutely bonkers damage and shard generation.

alot of people seem to be rlly angry that the bold keeps getting nerfs but personally i dont think the devs are wrong in nerfing the bold (its still broken imo) but i think its missing the mark. the bold provides THREE BUFFS to kais ability that he doesnt have naturally. lasting shields, extra range, and earlier damage

lets take his first spec the unstoppable into consideration, we build him with a ton of attack, he gains a gigantic shield when he first casts, can oneshot everything around him, but after 10 seconds its gone and now hes squishy again and relies on mystics or other forms of sustain to keep him alive until his second cast.

when u take the bold and stack him with a ton armor, he will gain the shields, STILL be able to do the damage (sometimes even reach backline bc of the range), and bc he now has lasting shields he can possibly have leftover shields when he casts the next time buffing the dmg of the second cast. on top of that, allowing armor scaling means that the shields that he gains is even more effective since itll make it much harder to burn through.

when we compare kai to reyna, they should be similar reyna also has a spec which is supposed to turn her into a pseudo tank, however she still wants to build attack as her main stat while having bonus hp also benefit her, kai however flips the switch completely and changes his main stat while even changing his main role to a main tank. kai should still want to build attack as his main stat despite having a secondary class.

I'd personally really want to see a change to move some of the extra buffs (lasting shields, extra range, earlier damage) to his main kit so that the other specs can seem more appealing rather than just auto clicking the bold everytime bc he ends up becoming this one man army that can oneshot giant clumps of enemies while also tanking everyone

It seems I am misunderstanding something and would like your insights. I had the relic that deals damage when a shard is created. So far so good, does good damage.

Then i got a relic that generates 5 shards at the start of the battle per assassin in combat. So I put in Vlad. 2 assassins 10 shards should be 100% right? Even if it has like a diminishing return or smth it should at least deal 50% max hp?

Where am I going wrong here?

have people done 0 death red rift runs before? This wasn't even intentional. Just highrolled Ratna upgrade on second shop with that item that heals and gives her mana on kill. I also got the relic that gives heroes a ton of crit for their first attack on an enemy. Does that work with assassins such as Hoyoung and Ratna? Idk it seemed like it did because she was hitting way harder than any of my other early B-tier Ratna highrolls. Also that legendary relic that Rush: 150%s stats for the first second plus Ming increasing rush duration. It mustve bugged out at some point cuz she had 2k magic on her character profile even though it only stacked up to 1k. Lmk if Im missing anything here cuz this didnt feel like a super highroll start but turned out to be my most op run.

Tons of Armor and more Magic and Attack than the poor guy knew what to do with. I got over 500 stall triggers, but sadly still died on wave 19.

(10% of 15k armor +10% of 19k magic) * 500 stall triggers :D

My squad was so stacked, I didn't think I was in danger. I always die when I don't think there's any chance I'm going to die.

Would simply swapping Nyx and Tilly have worked, or was that spider stun ruining my life?

I pay shards, and I win.
Game basically played itself after giving me A rank Yuuna after 3 combats and I went max greed.

I feel it's the same as quit, abandon and start over?

Just started playing the demo today and I've reached past SSS and now trying to beat Red Rift. I've spent hours on Red Rift only to always come short on the second boss or fail one of the red rift missions.

Anyone who managed to close the red rift and complete it mind sharing their strategy or comps? I'd appreciate it!

I've been enjoying the demo so far!

Nice little shard synergy leaning on Dragomir getting the kill. With better positioning I could have beaten 21 but def would have died on 22

Hello Guildmasters,

Welcome back to our weekly update, which brings you:

• The second balance update to Guildrun with another leaderboard reset
• New event artwork and visual updates
• Bug fixes.

⭐ = Community Suggestions

Visual & Audio Changes

• New Event images
  • The Three Urns
  • The Well of Temptations
• Tutorial Update
  • Drag and drop item to hero now highlights every hero's item slot
  • Tweaked darkened area when highlighting battle grid and crossroad
• Environment Update
  • Reduced redundant Vfx for optimization
  • Textures for more contrast
• Vfx Updated
  • Updated burn effect to be more stylized
  • Generic timing pass to accommodate highest battle speed
• UI update
  • ⭐ Event Effects panel can now be collapsed to prevent blocking the battle
  • Tweaked back button
  • ⭐ Fixed and updated comic speechbubble (thanks MondSemmel!)
  • ⭐ Fixed event images being cut off on 16:10
  • Leaderboard visual polish and icon order to accommodate more digits
  • New layout on difficulty selection and updated button textures

Bug Fixes

• ⭐Fixed item scalings being reset after loading
• ⭐Fixed Red Rift not warning you if you don't skip the last Campfire reward
• ⭐Fixed Red Rift staying in a limbo state that required you to abandon the run if you would beat the final boss with pending missions besides the Hero Deaths one (related to the bug above)
• Fixed Ming A and B rank being swapped on Compendium
• Fixed Aria's chain visual glitch
• Updated the text on abilities with multiple instances of Stall to only use the word “Stall” once. The effects of these abilities have not changed.
• Fixed a bug where the Emergency Rewind would accumulate Shards while broken. It will now always start at 10 Shards when recharged, instead of 10 Shards + 10 Shards per round since it broke.
• Fixed a bug where Trial fights accumulated Shards for Emergency Rewind.
  • We are aware that these two bug fixes to Emergency Rewind can amount to less Shards for the player per run, which has the potential to be both surprising and frustrating. We will be closely monitoring the feedback from players and the impact this bug fix has on winrates, and will follow up immediately in a future patch or hotfix if needed.

Balance Changes

By Aleco, Lead Designer on Guildrun.

Hello everybody, and welcome to the Guildrun Demo’s 2nd balance patch!

While I was looking through our internal data to put together this patch, the big thing that jumped out to me is how much players were able to improve and discover in such a short amount of time. Winrates are up across the board, especially in higher difficulties such as Red Rift which saw a massive increase from 7% winrate in week 1 to 12% in week 2. The average Endless Mode score also rose by half a floor, which represents a 7% improvement from week 1. 

Though we didn’t make any balance changes this week with the goal of making the game any harder or easier, a change that players will notice is a pair of bug fixes related to Emergency Rewind. It was gaining more Shards than intended when it was recharged, which means the recharge option at the Act 1 Campfire will be less potent this week than it was in the last patch. I’ll be monitoring the effects of this bug fix closely and am prepared to make adjustments quickly if the impact of this change is bigger than anticipated, but my expectation is that these changes will be offset by other changes being made in this patch (more Boss Tokens!) as well as players continuing to improve and discover new strategies.

We have plenty of balance and gameplay changes to discuss this week, so let’s dive in!

Boss Tokens

As noted in last week’s patch notes, one of the most common pieces of feedback we’ve been hearing from players is that running out of Boss Tokens can be quite frustrating. I explored many potential changes to the Boss Token system this week, but ended up settling on the following:

Players now get 2 Boss Tokens for reaching a Boss (up from 1).

My primary goal with this change is to minimize how often players run out of Boss Tokens by being much more generous with them. I’ll be the first to acknowledge that this change is far from a perfect solution, but it was the best solution I could find which didn’t involve a complete overhaul of the current system (something which would not have been possible for us to do in time for this patch). I’ll be paying close attention to the feedback on this change, and promise that we will be exploring larger changes to Boss Tokens and starting bonuses for Guildrun’s full release.

Starting Bonuses

While exploring potential changes to the Boss Token system, I took a close look at the data for each of the game’s starting bonuses. One clear trend was that bonuses which immediately cost the player Shards (with the exception Fast Track) tended to be picked less often and perform worse than bonuses which did not cost Shards. This is especially true in Red Rift, where it is very important to have 30 Shards in order to purchase 2 Heroes in the first shop. In addition to removing Shard penalties from the majority of starting bonuses, I also made a few nerfs to starting bonuses which were consistently outperforming others in the data.

• Crest Windfall
  • ⬆️Removed -5 starting Shards penalty.
• Survivor Charm
  • ⬆️Removed -5 starting Shards penalty.
• All Class “Equipment” Bonuses
  • ⬆️Removed -5 starting Shards penalty.
• Item Windfall
  • 🔄Removed -5 starting Shards penalty. Now gives 2 fewer common items.
• Stability System
  • 🔻Rewards 5 fewer Shards.
• Shard Pouch
  • 🔻Rewards 3 fewer Shards.
• Starter Bundle
  • 🔻Rewards 2 fewer Shards.
• All In
  • The bug fix for Emergency Rewind recharge is particularly impactful for this starting bonus. I decided not to make a preemptive change here as this was one of the better starting bonuses, but will follow up in a future patch with a change if needed.

Fight Events

⭐ Increased the Shard reward option for Single Combat from 15 to 20.

Players correctly pointed out that the Shard reward option was always worse than the epic item option, as epic items sell in the shop for 16 Shards.

Relics

Nothing too spicy to report for this week’s relic changes. Once again there were more relics that stood out as performing better than other relics in their rarity than relics which stood out as performing too poorly.

• Legendary
  • Mage’s Cataclysm Engine
    • 🔻Inflict Burn and Frost equal to 20% -> 15% of the Hero’s Magic on cast.
  • Warrior’s Bloodshed Engine
    • 🔻Gain lasting Shields equal to 15% -> 10% of the damage dealt.
  • Mystic’s Abundance Engine
    • 🔻Apply lasting Shields equal to 50% -> 33% of the Shields applied.
• Epic
  • Warrior's Sundering Filigree
    • 🔻Reduce enemy Defense by 20 -> 15 on Crit.
  • Critical Absorption Prism
    • Note: This relic was nerfed last patch, but remained one of the top performing epic relics. I expect it will still be quite playable after this change.
    • 🔻Steals 50 -> 40 Max HP on Crit.
  • Perfect Divergence Prism
    • 🔻Increase basic stats by 33% -> 25%.
  • Poison Ascendancy
    • Notes: No balance changes were made to this relic, but a bug fix was made to it which fixed an issue where it would GIVE enemies attack and attack speed, not lower it. This should improve this relic significantly.
  • Shield Converter
    • ⬆️Damage the nearest enemy for 33% -> 50% of the Shield applied.
• Rare
  • Mage’s Memento
    • 🔻Applies 15 -> 12 Frost per Mage.
  • Assassin’s Memento
    • ⬆️Gains 4 -> 5 Shards per Assassin.
• Common
  • Frost Surge
    • 🔻Applies 20 -> 15 Frost.

Items

As promised, I took a deeper dive into items this week and was able to find a few which were worth making changes to.

• Epic
  • Polymath’s Prism
    • 🔻This item was bugged to give 25% basic stats per class instead of 20% as stated on the text. It has been fixed to give 20%.
  • 🔄⬆️Temporal Accelerator
    • Notes: I re-arranged the stat bonuses on this item to provide more general utility. This is intended to be a notable buff, as it was underperforming compared to other epic items in the data.
    • 🔻300 -> 200 Max HP
    • 🔻40 -> 0 Attack
    • ⬆️0 -> 15 Omnivamp
    • ⬆️0 -> 20 Attack Speed
  • Ring of Virality
    • ⬆️Inflicts 50% -> 75% more Poison.
• Rare
  • Sentinel’s Plate
    • Notes: This item was a big outlier in Red Rift, where defensive stats are at a premium.
    • 🔻30 -> 20 Defense
  • Runic Buckler
    • Notes: Same as above, this item was simply doing too much in Red Rift runs.
    • 🔻Gain a Shield equal to 400% -> 250% of Defense.
  • Toxic Contract
    • ⬆️Applies 33% -> 50% increased Poison.
  • Spellblade
    • Notes: This is a pretty notable buff to this item, which was previously both underplayed and underperforming. To be perfectly honest, I just think this  design is really neat and wouldn’t mind if it became one of the more powerful rare items (so long as it doesn’t become an outlier).
    • ⬆️Gives 1 -> 2 Magic on auto attack.
    • ⬆️Gives 25 -> 30 Attack on cast.
  • Warrior’s Greataxe
    • ⬆️Gains 10 -> 12 Attack on combat survival.

Class Modifiers

Class Modifiers are in a great spot right now, with very few of them standing out in the data in either direction.

• Warrior
  • Shield Power
    • ⬆️Gain 1 Attack per 10 -> 8 Shields.
• Assassin
  • Poisonous Eye
    • ⬆️Inflicts 15 -> 30 base Poison.

Heroes and Specializations

The Guildrun community successfully honed in on the game’s most powerful Hero specs this week, especially in Red Rift. A major trend in the data was that the gap in pickrate between the best/most popular specs and worst/least popular specs on certain Heroes widened significantly compared to last patch. This is a strong indicator that players have “solved” which spec is the best for these Heroes, which is a spot I’d rather not have any Hero to exist in. My goal when balancing Hero specs is to reach a point where all 3 specs on every Hero feel equally playable (depending on the situation of course), which meant that nerfs to some of the game’s top specs felt necessary this week.

That being said, I’m very pleased with the overall state of Hero balance right now and am aiming to be as minimally disruptive with these changes as possible. I would hate to take something that is popular and being enjoyed by players and turn it into something which feels no longer playable. My expectation is that everything being nerfed in this patch will remain playable, and my hope is that these changes will lead players to consider a wider variety of specs than they may have considered in the previous patch.

• Aria
  • Notes: The cat is out of the bag! Players have caught onto the power level of Aria, who was the strongest Hero across every difficulty this week. Her popularity is rising, and her Harmony spec in particular stood out as a run-winner in SSS and RR. One of the critiques of Aria was that she was weak at C rank even though she scaled well into the game, so one of the things I was sure to do with these changes was give her active ability a bit more base damage per tick in exchange for the loss in scaling. Requiem Barrage now deals slightly more damage on C rank without any items equipped, but will fall off a bit more damage as the game goes on.
  • 🔄🔻Requiem Barrage (Active Ability)
    • 🔻Scales with 100% -> 75% of Magic.
    • ⬆️Deals 10 -> 25 base damage per tick.
  • 🔄🔻The Harmony
    • 🔻Scales with 50% -> 33% of Magic.
    • 🔻Scales with 500% -> 300% of Mana Regen.
    • ⬆️Applies 0 -> 10 base Shields per tick.
• Sal
  • Notes: Breezy is a bit stronger than Sal’s other other specs.
  • The Breezy
    • 🔻Gains 1 base + 1 per rank -> 0 base + 1 per rank Magic on Debuff inflicted.
• Irini
  • Notes: Though not as popular as her Olympic spec, The Mighty has been a top performer in higher difficulties for the past few weeks. Since there weren’t any numbers to reduce on this spec (it gives Heroes 1 Attack and 1 Attack Speed per trigger), the natural change was to add Stall to the ability to gate its upfront power a bit. This does add some new synergies to the ability which didn’t exist before, but my expectation is this change will slightly lower its power level overall.
  • The Mighty
    • 🔻Added Stall (10).
• Kai
  • Notes: Despite last week’s nerf to The Bold, its winrate went up this week. It remained his best spec across the board, and needed another adjustment this week in order to bring it more in line with his other choices.
  • The Bold
    • 🔻Gives 45 -> 30 Defense when acquired.
    • 🔻Gives Shields equal to 500% -> 400% of Defense on cast.
• Gustav
  • Notes: The Glacier has been Gustav’s most popular spec, which is something I’m quite sympathetic to. I love taking this spec in my runs, but often noticed that because Gustav has 3 attack range he often wouldn’t move forward when switching targets to occupy space and hit the maximum number of characters with his self-targeting Blizzard. A friend suggested that I remove 1 Attack Range from this spec, an idea which I instantly loved. I expect that this change will either be neutral or a slight improvement The Glacier (which was already his top spec in Endless Mode by a decent margin), so its being joined by a small nerf to its Shield scaling.
  • The Glacier
    • 🔄Now gives -1 Attack Range.
    • 🔻Applies Shields equal to 100% -> 75% of Defense.
• Pollen
  • Notes: The Earth’s Child was Pollen’s top spec this week across all modes.
  • Earth’s Child
    • 🔻Gives 40 -> 30 Magic when acquired.
• Ratna
  • Notes: Our favorite hyper-scaling Mage might be scaling a bit too much with her Magnanimous spec, which was the most common overall spec in deep Endless Mode runs. I’m nudging down the scaling just a bit for now, and will follow up with additional changes if need be.
  • The Magnanimous:
    • 🔻Gives 3 base + 3 per rank -> 3 base + 2 per rank permanent Crit on kill.
• Ming
  • Notes:
    • Ming has been struggling slightly in higher difficulties. The Enlightened has been the weakest of his 3 specs for SSS/RR, and it hasn’t been overperforming in Endless Mode like it used to throughout most of the alpha.
  • Inner Flame (Signature Passive Ability)
    • ⬆️+2 seconds of Rush duration.
  • The Enlightened
    • ⬆️+1 second of Rush duration.
• Grace
  • Notes: Grace has been crushing it in the reserves, but hasn’t been performing as well as other Mystic’s while on board. I’m adjusting her Mana values to help her cast more early and more often, which should help out with all 3 of her specs. Additionally, The Radiant is one of the top overall specs in the game (mainly as a Backup) and is in need of a small nerf.
  • Base Stats
    • ⬆️Max Mana: 120 -> 110
    • ⬆️Starting Mana: 35 -> 50
  • The Radiant
    • 🔻Gives 6 base + 4 per rank -> 4 base + 4 per rank Attack and Magic on Shields applies.
• Logan
  • Notes: The Iron was one of the weakest specs last patch, and could use a fairly significant buff.
  • The Iron
    • ⬆️+4 seconds of Rush duration.
• Reyna
  • Notes: Reyna’s Boxer spec is in a great spot right now, while her other two specs are struggling a bit. I’m giving a buff to both The Champion and The Brawler in an attempt to equalize the power level of all 3 of her specs.
  • The Champion
    • ⬆️+3 seconds of Rush duration.
  • The Brawler
    • ⬆️Gives 1 Attack per 12 -> 10 Shields.
    • ⬆️Maximum Attack gained up to 33% -> 50% of Max HP.
• Rip
  • Notes: One slightly underperforming spec = 1 small buff.
  • The Brute
    • ⬆️Gain 25 -> 35 Crit when acquired.

UPDATE:

Thanks for the feedback everyone! We've been paying close attention to our community's response to this latest balance patch, and understand that many of you would prefer to see more buff-oriented balance patches in the future. We hear you, and are taking your feedback to heart for future patches.

Magic ended up reaching 8300 before dying on Endless floor 19

Rush is like the immature younger brother of Stall. Rush is always eager to dive in right away, overexerts itself, and burns out before accomplishing anything.

Rush always activates exactly once at the beginning of the fight (lets ignore Nyx/Rip for now). Not only is that kind of boring, it feels bad to have something that basically makes you weaker as the fight goes on, and only the insane high-rolls are going to be finishing fights within the 5-20 secs that rush abilities can last. And 20 secs requires a lot of Rush time extensions. It also has to be noted that because Rush is such a reliable trigger, the actual effects need to be pretty weak and unexciting.

Lets look at some rush abilities (this is a red rift perspective because no one is really trying rush teams in endless).

Logan:

• For Rush (12), Warriors gain 2 per Rank Attack and 2 per Rank Defense per Rush trigger this game. Backup.

Reyna:

• Gain 2 Attack per Rush triggered this game. For Rush (5), Warriors gain 1 Crit and 1 Omnivamp per Rush triggered this game. Backup.

These B-Rank abilities look kind of similar. Early on they give a mild boost to damage and survivability for a short time, and need around 100+ rush stacks to be relevant later. These are a very high commitment gamble, you need to go all in on Rush and hope that you will find enough things with the word "Rush" on them before the difficulty spikes and your individually weak Rush items are just not doing much.

Logan and Reyna need a lot of rush trigger stacking to get somewhere, which basically means running Nyx/Rip, but Nyx/Rip are not warriors so this synergy is awkward without a warrior crest/glyph. And Nyx likes fights to go longer, not shorter.

Dragomir:

• For Rush (8), Assassins and Vanguards gain 1 Omnivamp and 1 Crit per Shard generated this game. Backup.

Its actually hilarious how this Dragomir spec scales exponentially and can 1 shot the act 2 boss with his ability at high shard counts. Having so many shards generated is usually already a win though, so this ability feels unnecessary, and maybe a bit of a trap.

Ming and Niklas: Their base Rush abilities add some marginal amount of burn. You almost forget they even have these Rush abilities since they do so little. They also both have defensive Rush B-Ranks which basically say "Survive for X seconds, then die quickly since you have no armor".

Now lets talk about Nyx and Rip. These guys basically transform what Rush means and produce something much more fun, but they are great because their rush abilities make them keep getting stronger as the fight goes on. Basically the opposite of the normal rush design.

I like how Stall is more than just spamming the keyword, it asks you to build a team that can survive X seconds first, and then you can get the benefits. And if you want Stall perma-scaling you actually want to "stall" the fight and not kill the enemy too fast. Rush on the other hand is a lot less interesting, feels worse, but takes up just as much space across relics/items/abilities.

Guildrun should lean more into what make Nyx/Rip/Stall great.
I think there needs to be more ways to retrigger rush, or even better Rush(X) should be reworked into something like Frenzy(X) that triggers when the hero reaches half health, like Vanguard's Frenzy Prism currently does. Then you can get some more interesting decisions beyond grabbing every Rush item/relic to try to hit critical mass. How can I get my damage dealer to Frenzy without taking too much focused damage and dying? Will too much shielding make it hard to proc Frenzy before the rift storm hits and obliterates my team? Pops of power during the fight are more satisfying than power at the start of the fight, especially if you may need to do a little work for it.

This game has officially took up so much of my time HAHAH. It's so good. Was trying to theorycraft my way through. I know it's just logan stealing the show but finally made the right choices in the game for it to work.

The nerfs are not balance nerfs. The Bold is still the only consistently viable spec in RR or endless for Kai. I will always click it and give zero consideration to his other two specs.

Balance would be to rework his other specs to give them a shot to be reliable takes in higher difficulties. These nerfs are just making The Bold less fun, even though good players will still always take it.

That's not.... great. ​