The Last Stand DLC

My name is Clint Tasker, gameplay designer at Relic. It seems I’ve been lying low lately and that’s because I have been working on some badass Last Stand wargear for you guys. This wargear is going to be PDLC (Paid Downloadable Content) which means you are going to have to pay for it, but I have made it extra special. So it is totally worth it.

The design goal for Last Stand has always been that wargear would give you new ways to play, rather than straight-up be better.  I’ve tried to maintain that design philosophy with these items. One, so that players do not have to buy it to compete for top scores and two, to stay true to the original intent of the mode. These items are here to create new and awesome ways for players to slaughter mobs of infantry in the two arenas. With that being said, let’s get to the gear.

Space Marine Captain

The Space Marine is a pretty well rounded hero and so there weren’t too many holes to fill in his game. His load out is pretty heavy on melee weapons though and melee has always been less viable in Last Stand. Most heroes just can’t take the damage that a lot of the bigger creatures dish out. So, the Captain’s new gear is designed to help him remain in melee combat and to make those weapons a more viable choice.

Inscribed Combat Shield (One handed weapon)   
The inscribed combat shield counts as a one handed weapon that takes the slot of a pistol. It doesn’t provide any damage but increases the health and armor of the Captain. On top of this it provides a trait called Shield Block that reduces incoming ranged damage.

Sacred Relic Armor (Armor)
The Sacred Relic armor has low-to-medium armor rating but provides the Space Marine with a lot more melee offense. After all, the best defense is to just kill your opponent before he attacks you. It grants two traits which are Crushing Blows and Melee Expert. Crushing Blows causes any melee attack from the Space Marine to do area of effect damage, and Melee Expert bumps his melee damage by 15%.

Eldar Farseer

The Farseer in my opinion always suffered from some durability issues. Her abilities could keep her alive for a significant amount of time, but if she was ever knocked down or ran out of mana she would crumple like she was made of paper. I wanted to address this, and I also wanted to make melee more viable for her as well since the majority of her weapons are close combat.

Debilitating Witchblade (One handed weapon)
This witchblade is meant to be a tank weapon, if you are familiar with MMORPG terms. If you aren’t, that means she can go toe to toe with the biggest creatures in Last Stand using this sword, but you trade off damage. The sword has two traits: Sap and Energy Leach. Sap reduces the melee damage of anything hit in melee by 50% for 5 seconds. Energy Leach will increase the Farseer’s energy every time she kills something in melee.

Idranel’s Armor (Armor)
This armor is named after the infamous Farseer from the Dawn of War II campaign. It is another piece designed to improve the Farseer’s chances in melee and her durability in general. It will increase her total health and give her the traits Unshakable and Foresight. Foresight reduces incoming melee damage. If only Idranel could have seen that uppercut coming from Tarkus.

Ork Mekboy

The Mekboy didn’t have any huge holes to his game for me to fill, and he certainly doesn’t have any durability issues. There was a build however, that I felt never lived up to its potential. I’ll just describe the items and I’m sure you can see where I am going with this.

Juiced Up Tellyporta (Accessory)
This Orky teleporter add-on causes a bit of added destruction. It grants a trait called Ported!! What Ported!! does is cause anything teleported by the Mekboy to explode, including himself. This works in conjunction with the Zzap Knife, the Teleporta Pack and the Mad Teleporta Pack.

Pokkit Rokkit Launcha (One handed weapon)
The Pokkit Rokkit Launcha is a much cuter version of the Rokkit Launcha. It is one handed and counts as a pistol. Because it only fire one rocket, it isn’t nearly as powerful as the two handed version but it does provide some knockback for a melee oriented Mek.

Imperial Guard Lord General

One of the main disadvantages of the Lord General was that his turrets took a lot of energy to call in, and they would die so fast that it often wasn’t worth it. I wanted to bring this rather large aspect of his play-style back and allow players to explore it. Matt, the artist working with me on these items, and I had a really interesting idea to give the general kind of a hunter theme. It seems like one of those things a pompous general would do in his spare time.

Ursidae Trophy (Accessory)
This inspiring mantle grants two traits. The first is Inspired Will which increases the health of all of the General’s infantry. The second is Superior Provisions which drastically increases the health of the General’s turrets. Pretty simple but effective and it looks badass.

Ornate Vostroyan Shotgun (Two handed weapon)
So of course if we give the General a bear pelt we have to give him the gun he used to shoot said bear. This shotgun allows the general to carve through mobs of infantry with its AOE attack a little easier than some of his other weapons. It also comes with a Solid Slug ability which will do high single target damage for those pesky Wraithlords and Warbosses.

Hive Tyrant

He’s pretty good. Like I said before, I didn’t want to create any items that would significantly alter the power balance of the heroes. With the Hive Tyrant it was a challenge to create pieces that would be useful but not contribute any further to his high scoring ways.

Thornback Carapace (Armor)
Not to be confused with Thornback, the Thornback Carapace is a very durable armor piece that is covered in blades. Every time an enemy attacks the Hive Tyrant in melee they take damage.

Devourer Cannon
The Devourer Cannon is a unique ranged weapon. It fires a parasite at the enemy which will cause damage over time to their entire squad. To maximize the effect, the Tyranid player should try to attack multiple squads in order to inflict the most amount of damage.

Chaos Sorcerer

The Sorcerer had some durability issues along similar lines of the Farseer. In melee he often wouldn’t last too long, even with his great new sword. I added an item that should help him out but mostly I wanted to add a couple of items that require quite a bit of input from the player. These items are extremely powerful but they do require some effort.

Rubric Touched Helm (Accessory)
This accessory has a single trait assigned to it called Dark Fortification. When the Sorcerer is struck in melee he gains 150 armor rating for 10 seconds. As long as he moves from melee combat to melee combat he will be extremely resistant to both melee and ranged damage.

Oracle Stave (Two handed weapon)
This bad boy is one of my favourites. Its damage output isn’t particularly fantastic but it has a chance to trigger a trait called Fate Weaver. Fate Weaver charges up the weapon to ridiculous proportions causing the Sorcerer’s next melee attack to do incredible single target damage, and significant area of effect damage around the attack. This way you can engage chaff and get your armor and damage up, move over to a high priority target and unleash the pain.

I haven’t personally had the chance to work on The Last Stand since doing balance work on the very original version. It was nice to return to this game mode and work in an area that was co-operative, rather than competitive. I’m also a huge nerd and a fan of Warhammer 40,000 fluff, so it was great to flex the narrative muscle a bit more. It was incredibly fun making these items and I hope that comes through in their gameplay. Enjoy.