Patch Notes 1.8: New Moves

Patch 1.8 brings with it a whole host of exciting changes. Pretty much everything the community has been begging for – from a nerf to Dracoceratops and Dracorex Gen 2, to balancing changes with critical strikes and cloaking, to more free ways to engage with the world and earn DNA for players who aren’t paying large sums, this patch has a ton to offer. We’ve broken our patch notes for 1.8 down into six separate guides, giving you the rundown on all the changes. If you’ve missed the other guides, click the links below.

When receiving and surviving direct damage, inflict 50% speed penalty on opponent for 1 turn and Attack 1x.

The new Dsungaia has access to this Decelerating Counter, meaning pretty much as long as you hit it last turn, you’ll likely be slower for your next turn. It’s an interesting move, and I had hoped they’d implement this with the Sauropods as I really think it would make them playable again (both the 1x counter attack and the perpetual slowing behavior of a decelerating counter). Particularly interesting is how using decelerating counter plus any slowing move (usually slowing moves slow by 50%) means you’re reducing the opponents speed to zero. And pretty much everything is faster than zero.

Nothing else in the game is directly noted as getting Decelerating Counter, so it’ll just be the new hybrid for now.

Dodge 50% 1 turn. Cleanse self. Increase Critical Hit Chance 50% for 1 turn.

Sometimes it pays to be slower.

There’s a reason this prowl is called “deliberate” – because it’s deliberately slower than something that has plagued Smilodon and others with Prowl since their release – Instant Distraction.

Now, rather than laying into a pounce or a big rampage while the opponent queues up a faster instant distraction to slow you down, Deliberate Prowl (lacking the instant quality of prowl) will cleanse away any negative effects AFTER all instant moves are played, still buffing your critical chance and causing any instant invincibility shields to kindly go away. Smilocephalosaurus will be sporting this new annoying move, helping players who are facing off against some of the best counter attackers in the game – like Trykosaurus and Diorajasaur. Talk about more head games.

Remove target’s positive effects. Deal 2x Damage. Cooldown 1. Delay 1.

At long last, we get a nullifying move that really packs a punch. While this isn’t really a ground-breaking move, giving it to Quetzorion (the new Tanycolagreus + Pteraquetzal Unique) means you’ve got a very cunning and very quick tiny bird that can really pack a punch. It’ll help people contend with cloaking and buffing mechanics, in addition to getting rid of shielding.

Shield 50% one turn. Attack 1x. Reduce target’s speed 50% for 2 turns.

If Miragaia wasn’t annoying enough already, she just got a buff. Her shielding strike becomes Shielded Decelerating Strike, so now not only does it shield, but it also slows too. And her new hybrid – the terrifying-sounding pure counter-attacker Dsungaia, got it as well. So now we’ll get another nightmare counter attacker that can regenerate and annoy the living daylights out of us.

While we’re not getting 20 new moves like in some patches, these four new moves provide a lot of flavor to the overall feel of these new creatures and we’re excited to see them in action. The only one that looks particularly problematic is the decelerating counter and shielded decelerating strike, but it’ll be interesting to see how those can be overcome as time goes on.