Frost Giant recently announced that Beta 1 will start on December 5, which means the time is ripe to get our theorcrafting on and think more about what the Infernal faction is going to look like. Luckily for us, Leana Hafer at IGN was given a deep (and we mean deep) dive into what the Infernals will look like in the upcoming Beta.
Known Mechanics
For those of you following Stormgate's development, the concept of the Shroud should not be new - its a map control aura that surrounds certain Infernal structures (and units, now!) that provide some amount of shielding that ticks up while in the shroud and ticks down when not in it. This encourages Infernal players to hold their zones of map control and think critically about where and how they spread their influence on the...and that's about it! Everything else is brand new (and super exciting).
UI Updates
Before we get into the new units and mechanics, it bears pointing out the marked improvements that have been made to the UI between the alpha update video released about a month ago and the footage IGN released today. Creep camps, therium patches, and luminite clumps are far more visible on the minimap, it looks like they've implemented a method to swap minimap location between bottom left and bottom right, and hotkey groups are now visible along the side of the screen - I wonder if this means automatically adding units to hotkeys is included? They've also added sub-bars to HP bars, which should make it far more visible how much health certain units have.
Production Charges
In the Alpha update, we could see Vanguard and Infernals both showcasing a similar production setup - one unit comes out of each production per cycle. For Beta 2, it appears that each production structure has the ability to queue charges - much like a zerg hatchery hoarding larvae or (to a lesser extent) warpgates. This means that players will be able to develop their production ahead of some tech breakpoint and then produce all the units at once.
This provides an incredible amount of flexibility for infernal players. One of the core tenets of RTS play is to develop your economy as quickly as possible (when not going for a cheese), which means delaying army and tech production for as long as possible. Banking charges on production structures means infernal players will be able to do that, and then build the proper response at the last second. I suspect we are going to see some very different build orders going forward. This can also serve as a bit of a crutch for new player as they learn the game, as they won't quite be punished as hard for forgetting a macro cycle as they might overwise have been. Of course, units built immediately won't have had the time to build up shielded (white) health that units produced with a standard macro cycle will, so its going to be interesting to see players navigate that tightrope.
Animus
As far back as the lore update last December, Frost Giant has been teasing us with this concept of animus - some core resource that powers the magic of the Infernals and gives them reason to invade planets across multiple universes.
It turns out that Anima is literally life force - and all infernals on a map (friend and foe) gain animus for each unit killed on the battlefield. This animus can be used to power rituals, which, for now, appears to be the act of summoning the "Flayed Dragon," an end-game Infernal unit that we'll get back to in just a bit. I'm excited to see what other mechanics Animus will power. Is it just an alternate resource to build powerful units? Will the Infernals have spellcasters that draw deeply from this well of life force? Only time will tell
Flayed Dragon
Last month, Frost Giant teased the model for what they were calling a "Flayed Dragon" with very little context. This update provides that context. The Flayed Dragon appears to be a late-game infernal unit summoned from Animus instead of (or on top of!) any therium or luminite cost, and it has a primary role of a spellcaster.
The Dragon has two main abilities - it can inhale the infest effect that Gaunts provide, and then apply that to all infested units as damage and heal white health on it's allies. It has a second ability that appears to be a breath attack (spreading infest?) but for now we don't know what it is. The Flayed Dragon's basic attack also appears to be AOE and far more powerful than the "water balloon" quality of life attacks that certain Starcraft 2 spell casters have received in recent years.
Weaver
While the Flayed Dragon may be getting all of the headlines, the Weaver is quietly my favorite unit of in the update. There's something deeply unsettling about how this lovecraftian colossus slowly shambles across the battlefield - a cross between The Ritual's Moder and Ungoliant. The image here doesn't do it justice - there's something deeply unsettling about the way the Weaver walks across the battlefield, almost as if all of the parts doing quite fit together.
We know less about the Weaver's mechanics or tech level, but I can only assume it's a mid-to-lategame unit given it's size and ability to reposition other units. It appears to have some sort of consume ability as well - in Alpha 1 this was used by Magmadons to eat Felhogs in exchange for extra white health. Unlike Starcraft 2's Viper, though, these are grounded melee units - which vastly decreases the strength of a repositioning spell. They also have the ability to see up small cliffs (but not large ones) as seen in the screenshot below.
Magmadon
We've seen the Magmadon before, but in the context of a red (or blue) block without any rigging or textures. This update, we get to see the Magmadon in it's full glory - and it's gorgeous! However, it seems to have lost the ability to stun through units and instead just has the charge and consume/feast abilities of the Alpha 1 test.
Doombringer (formly Harbinger)
The Doombringer (née Harbinger) is the Infernal answer to the Vanguard's Evacs - with a super interesting extra ability. Unlike traditional drop units, it appears that the Doombringer needs to land before releasing it's payload, while also creating a an area of Shroud around it. This deployment also appears to release all units from the Doombringer at once - which can lead to some intensely powerful drop timings, especially when fortified by easily-accessible shroud. I can also see Doombringer used a main component of armies to add some extra tankiness to frontline engagements. It also has an ability to teleport itself an all units inside back home - although its not clear whether that works when grounded as well.
Unit Updates
We didn't just get unit reveals in the IGN article - it seems like a lot has changed with the units that we were more familiar with from the Alpha 1 update.
Brute/Fiend
Not much has changed here - each fiend is a bulky melee unit that can split into two smaller and faster fiend units. The big difference, though, is that Brutes now have access to an upgrade that automatically splits them into fiends when on low health (massive for larger fights!) and that the fiends lose health over time when not in the shroud. Seems like the fiend rushes from the alpha are a thing of the past!
Gaunt
The Gaunt has also seen some changes - no longer do their basic attacks automatically apply infest on the units they attack. Instead, Infernal players will need to research and upgrade AND pay some health from the fiends to make their attacks apply infest, which does damage over time and forces units that die with the status effect active to spawn a fiend from their corpses.
Getting Involved
As always, if you want to engage with the Frost Giant developers and get information from them as they post it, you should sign up for their newsletter, head on over to /r/Stormgate on reddit, and sign up for the beta and wishlist the game on steam!