Big damage numbers are fun, sure, but slapping a bunch of damage-over-time effects on your foes and watching them wilt has its allure too. Remnant 2's new archetype, the Ritualist, will let you do just that, and it'll be arriving alongside the game's first DLC next week.
The full trailer dropped on the game's official YouTube channel yesterday, giving us a look at the archetype's main traits and abilities. Its "Prime Perk", Vile, introduces a status effect called "Infected", which boosts the status effect damage received by your target and turns them into an exploding biohazard when they die, spreading everything they had to their mates within 15 metres.
The archetype's skills look interesting, too: Eruption causes nearby enemies to… well, erupt, dealing bonus damage based on how many status effects they've plagued by. Death Wish turns you into a blaze of glory, draining three times your health over the course of 20 seconds—but, you also gain a bunch of lifesteal and a massive boost to your damage.
My favourite by far is Miasma, a big AoE which sets your enemies on fire, melts them with acid, shocks them, and makes them bleed all at once.
What's more, Ben Cureton, the game's Principal Designer, also casually dropped a tweet with a full list of traits so players can get theorycrafting over the weekend.
The traits jibe with the archetype's engine of spreading status effects. One even gives you a new effect to play with, Terrified, which makes enemies deal 5% less damage. Also, they drop ammo more often, somehow. I can only assume they hurl their bullet boxes to the ground in fear before melting from all the acid, fire, and electricity you've hexed them with.
The Ritualist will arrive with The Awakened King DLC next week November 14—and I'm looking forward to having a tinker, as well as figuring out what bizarre hoops I'll need to jump through to unlock it. Last time I had to get grabbed by a big rat to get an alchemist's stone. Fun times.
