1.4.0 — Day 7 Update

Patch highlights

• The Ancient Warrior variant Cataclysm is replaced by Sword Rain: each Orbital Blade lifts an ancient sword and drops it on bosses and elites.
  
• New relic Powder Chain: a Dynamite blast sets off your Mines.
  
• Blessing Immortal Heart rework: you get one per run, you rise back up in gold when it saves you, and it breaks after that one save.
  
• Optimization: the game no longer slows down over several runs, and long runs stutter and crash far less.
  

Characters

• The Ancient Warrior variant Cataclysm is replaced by Sword Rain: each Orbital Blade lifts an ancient sword and drops it, one by one, on the nearest boss, else an elite, else the thickest crowd. Projectile count adds swords, up to 12, and your Orbital Blades are gone until the last sword lands.
  

Weapons

• Bouncy Ball: with no other enemy nearby, it bounces off its target and comes straight back to hit it again. It no longer uses up its bounces in one spot inside a large enemy or flies off and loops around.
  

Relics

• Powder Chain is new: a Dynamite and Mines relic. A Dynamite blast sets off the Mines it reaches.
  
• Homing Master rework: a Homing Missile blast refills the bounces and time of every Bouncy Ball it touches, up to twice per ball, and sends the ball at the nearest enemy outside the blast. Speed x1.5 removed, damage x1.4 ⇒ x1.15
  
• Spark Chain rework: a Shuriken that hits a stunned enemy bounces to the nearest enemy that isn't stunned and stuns it for a moment. Shurikens get +1 bounce; the old +2 Lightning targets, +2 bounces and x1.15 damage are gone.
  
• Frost Fire rework: Flamethrower flames shatter a slowed enemy once, ending its slow and bursting ice around it for part of an Ice Shard hit.
  
• Orbit Guard rework: an enemy your shield's shockwave pushes from inside the Orbital Blade ring stops on the ring, so the blades keep cutting it. Damage reduction 10 ⇒ 5
  

Blessings

• Immortal Heart: recharges every 90 s ⇒ one per run, breaks after one save, not offered in Fragile runs
  

Gems

• Bloodstone now unlocks from a new achievement, Keen Eye: raise a Garnet to level 15 in one run. If you have used it since 1.3.0, you keep it.
  

Enemies

• A ranged enemy that arrives with a group aims for a moment before its first shot.
  

Bug fixes and quality of life improvements

• The game no longer gets slower over several runs in one session, and benchmark scores no longer drop.
  
• Memory no longer builds up when melee weapons or Lightning are used for a long time, so long runs stutter and crash less.
  
• Far fewer freezes and stutters late in very long runs, including runs with very fast projectiles.
  
• Less lag when fire fields, explosions and tornadoes fill the screen late in a run, and less work overall during runs.
  
• Music uses much less memory: tracks stream instead of loading in full, and the last run's track is let go at the title.
  
• Shrine raids and other big squad spawns hitch less.
  
• Long runs no longer slow down late with few enemies on screen and long weapon reach.
  
• On slower PCs, a new run opens only after its first scene is drawn.
  
• Autosave during a run does less work.
  

• The Build window and challenges pick by click instead of by hovering. The first click only shows a slot; click it again or right-click to switch it off or on.
  
• Build window: the item already selected when a tab opens takes your first click as a look like any other item, and the controller carries on from the item you clicked.
  
• Build window: hovering a weapon's relic chip lights that relic's icon on its partner weapons and dims the other relic icons.
  
• Expedition prep: a challenge pedestal the controller moved to takes your first click as a look too; click it again or right-click to put the challenge on or take it off.
  
• The selected relic's recipe names each weapon next to its icon.
  
• Fixed the interact key, such as "F", staying on screen beside a chest's or a Lucky Altar's price after switching between keyboard and mouse and a controller.
  

• Auto Level-Up, Skill Auto-Cast, Low Spec Mode, Toggle Stats and Toggle My Effects can be bound to a spare controller button.
  
• Shortcuts with no pad button read "Not set" instead of "Steam Input".
  
• On a pad through Steam Input, resetting the pad buttons says that only the buttons set in the game go back to "Not set".
  
• In Settings, Controls on a controller, every row's button lines up in one column, and "Not set" is easier to read.
  
• Fixed a controller that turned itself off and on not being read again through Steam Input until the game restarted.
  

• If the graphics driver stops for a moment, a notice says the graphics are being restored; if it keeps happening, it suggests a driver update or Low Spec Mode.
  
• Weapon Lightning flashes much more gently.
  
• With the blessing Warm Puffer, cards that raise max HP also show the shield you actually get. A Chocolate that only read "Max HP +0" now shows "Shield +40" too.
  
• The Immortal Heart's revive scene is calmer with Reduce Motion and Reduce Flashing on.
  
• While overhealed, the HP on the HUD and in the Stats panel shows the overheal apart, as "49/49 +102" instead of "151/49", in the overheal colour.
  
• Blessings with no copy limit no longer show a Stacks line in the chest reveal, the altar and the encyclopedia; only limited ones show "Max N".
  
• Normal Enemy Opacity now also fades the shards ordinary enemies break into when they die.
  
• Fixed the FPS counter also counting frames redrawn by interpolation, which made it read higher than the Steam overlay.
  
• Fixed the first-run guide's last tip in the expedition hall covering the key hints along the top.
  
• Fixed the first-run guide's tip box sitting on top of other buttons on wide screens.
  

• The expedition hall shows what clears each Perdition level as a picture.
  
• A locked Perdition level shows the clear it needs, the picked level shows the level its clear opens, and a cleared level has a check mark.
  
• A map's info shows how far its Perdition is cleared.
  
• Each Perdition level's rule is now one short line, and the earlier levels' rules are grouped into one line.
  

• The Warden's pardon scrolls are easier to see, and taking one is clearly shown.
  
• If the Warden's first execution hits because no scroll was taken, the banner reads "Pardon missed!", and a death to his execution says to step on a fallen pardon.
  

• The benchmark screens show your own CPU and GPU, and the result links straight to the benchmark leaderboard.
  
• The benchmark leaderboard no longer shows V-Sync, and CPU and graphics card names are shorter, such as "Ryzen 7 7800X3D" and "RTX 4090". Hover to see the full name.
  
• The benchmark result's rank says which scenario it is on, Standard or Extreme.
  
• Fixed the official benchmark result not scrolling to the button you move to with a controller or Tab when the window is taller than the screen, and Shift+Tab not going backwards.
  
• Fixed the scenario picker's Leaderboard button not opening the scenario the controller highlight is on after the mouse touched the other card.
  
• Fixed a benchmark Leaderboard link showing an empty Challenge tab for a moment.
  
• Fixed the official benchmark's CPU FPS showing no number on a PC whose game ticks alone fill each second.
  
• Fixed the title screen flashing during the short rest after the official benchmark's warm-up.
  

• Leaderboards on maldhalla.com now show a run's Perdition level too.
  
• On the friends ranking, the season place sits under each name, so every build slot shows.
  
• Fixed long tier names being cut off on the ranking screen.
  

• Achievement progress an earlier failed save kept from your record, such as Full Build stuck at 7/8, catches up at the end of your next run on that device.
  
• Fixed Autosave and Save & Quit failing in very long runs.
  
• Fixed Autosave and Save & Quit failing in a Death Knight run with more than about 2,000 Mark of Death marks out at once.
  

• Fixed the score and kills labels being cut off on the Spanish and Turkish results screen.
  
• Fixed the German confirm button's label spilling out of the button.
  
• Fixed the chest card's buttons being pushed off screen at 1280×720 and 1280×800 by the long Warm Puffer, Iron Guardian and Spy's Dagger text in German, French, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, Ukrainian, Indonesian, Vietnamese and Turkish.
  

• When the server no longer signs in an old build, the game stops asking again for that launch, and the title tells you once to update.
  
• Fixed the "While moving" effects of the blessings Sun Crystal and Aerial Booster staying on while you were blocked in place.
  
• Fixed the blessing Flame Blade's burn damage +20% not applying.
  
• Fixed the weapon War Hammer's last repeats being dropped with many strikes at a short cooldown.
  
• Fixed burn spread by a dying enemy showing under Fireball in the results instead of the weapon, skill or blessing it came from, and setting off the wrong burn-kill effects.