Combat - The Field Effect - October 14, 2018

The Field Effect is an important part of battle in both Story Mode and Endless Dungeon Mode for The Demon Rush: Legends Corrupt. The Field Effect ties into the story's setting with the universe's stray Siphons. In The Demon Rush, Siphons are metaphysical connectors of body and mind to the soul for anything considered living (from humans to animals to "living metals" to the planets themselves and their local environs), and the stray Siphons present throughout a planet are loosely connected to those nearby and living. The Field Effect represents the influences of the battlefield's living combatants on these stray Siphons of the local environment, and the stray Siphons will respond in kind due to their connection with the local battlefield.

While this is how the Field Effect fits in story-wise, what this means gameplay-wise is that players and enemies using certain types of abilities will add more of a particular type of influence to the battlefield, heavily changing how the flow of battle will be.

Passive Abilities for player characters can also greatly enhance certain Active Abilities while a specific Field Effect is active, so having a strategy around the Field Effect for both individual characters and your team is something to consider. For example, characters who are set up to need the Body Field Effect may have their setup clash with another character who is customized to work more with the Water Siphon Field Effect to enhance their abilities.

The player could set their team up, for example, to all be customized heavily for the Body Field Effect to deal high damage, but when the player needs to ease up on the damage being dealt to them, they may not have enough abilities in different categories to pull them out. Likewise, a party that dabbles across Body, Mind and Siphon builds to give their characters Mixed builds will less likely run into the issue of being stuck in a Field Effect, but may not be able to enhance their abilities as effectively as those who specialize in a Field Effect. In the end, it's a matter of the sort of team that fits the playstyle the player is seeking.

Every playable character and enemy have abilities labelled as Body, Mind and Siphon (with Siphon having subcategories of Fire, Water, Wind and Earth, based on the user's element). Using abilities of these categories will shift the Field Effect towards one of these types, and once a certain threshold is reached, 1 of 6 Field Effects are triggered: Body, Mind, Fire Siphon, Water Siphon, Wind Siphon and Earth Siphon.

Battles begin with a no Field Effect, and Jimmy's Vital Wave ability will automatically clear the Field Effect on use, reverting it to the neutral state it was at the start of combat.

Body Field Effect

The battlefield is tinted red, and all attacks (from both players and enemies) deal double damage. Blocking only reduces damage by 25% instead of 50% and stagger time is up from 30 frames to 60 frames.

This Field Effect is more high-risk/high-reward, especially against normal enemies, since the battles will end quicker (for better or for worse) due to everyone dealing higher damage. Unless it is the end of one, it is recommended to avoid the Body Field Effect for boss battles, as bosses' higher HP will help them outlast and outdamage your team (unless you are aiming for a temporary Body Field Effect to inflict more damage with high-damage abilities and using other abilities to pull out of the Body Field Effect when done).

Although you take more damage blocking during the Body Field Effect than you do outside of the Body Field Effect and not blocking (as only 25% reduced damage and everyone doing double damage means taking an additional 50% damage still), the longer stagger time leaves attacking enemies open longer to more devastating attacks (Cherry's Stand Ground nullifies all damage while blocking for a short time, making this strategy much more rewarding in such a scenario).

Mind Field Effect

The battlefield gains a white tint, and all attacks (both players and enemies again) deal half damage. Blocking reduces damage by 75% rather than 50% and stagger time is decreased from 30 frames to 15 frames.

This Field Effect is mainly used to ease up the heavy fighting on the battlefield and stall for cooldowns to recharge (especially those for healing). This can be effective to trigger at times during boss battles to give your team a reprieve for healing and cooldowns, but, due to the lower damage output, is not recommended to keep as if the party does not have a strong Mind build team, due to the battles taking longer as a result.

Siphon Field Effects

The Siphon Field Effect triggers as Fire Siphon, Water Siphon, Wind Siphon or Earth Siphon, and the Field Effect is chosen based on the element of the user and the Siphon ability that triggers it (a Wind elemental character will trigger the Wind Siphon Field Effect if their Siphon ability is the one to carry the Field Effect into the Siphon threshold).

Each character is immune to the Siphon Field Effect of their element, and this applies to both player characters and enemies.

Fire

Fiery ash blows across the battlefield and large flames begin appearing on the battlefield, dealing 1 damage every 1/5th of a second to any non-Fire elemental combatants on the battlefield. The flames stay on the battlefield until the Fire Siphon Field Effect is removed, where they remain a total of 5 seconds more and vanish.

While 5 damage/second is very little, this is per flame, and a party immune to the Fire Field Effect can take advantage of the added DPS to their enemies.

Water

A rainstorm begins and adds up to 12 pools of water to the battlefield. Non-Water elemental combatants that step onto a water pool will be inflicted with knockdown, where they receive 50% more damage while prone. At present, no additional pools of water are added after the Water Field Effect first comes into play. [EDIT: As of 2019/02/03, the Water Field Effect now adds additional pools of water over time]

Wind

A windstorm begins and random windbursts will pop up on the battlefield sporadically, inflicting knockback to any non-Wind elemental combatants caught in their area of effect. Though this can make for a good infrequent interrupt (by suddenly forcing knockback on an enemy), it may be hard to land some attacks when your foes are being launched around the battlefield.

Earth

A sandstorm rages and all non-Earth elemental combatants' movement speed drops to 20%. This can be useful both for having Earth elemental characters close in on faraway enemies or for retreating and attacking from afar. [EDIT: 2019/05/21, it should be added that abilities that provide movement, such as Cherry's Line Overdrive, Knight's Power Drive, Jimmy's Twister, etc. do not suffer from the Earth Field Effect. This applies to general movement and dodging]

While only abilities can normally trigger Field Effects, each playable character can obtain a weapon that not only provides them with immunity to that elemental Siphon Field Effect (treating them as if they have that innate Element, basically allowing immunity to 2 elemental Siphon Field Effects), but their normal attacks will also ADD to that elemental Siphon Field Effect.

Each character's elemental weapon and the element they gain immunity/add to are as follows: