New hero: Effy, the Ice Queen

Effy, the Ice Queen, ruled the frozen wastelands with an icy resolve. Her secret lover, Icicle, a nomadic frostwalker, veiled her face with a mysterious cape, a silent testament to their forbidden love, as they braved a world uncertain if their paths would ever intertwine again.

Has no red hearts.
Starts with 3 spirit hearts.
Your projectile frequently freezes close enemies based on your chance to freeze.
Enemies also get frost damage when they get frozen.

Improved dynamic spawn system

• Completely reworked and polished the waves
• Normal enemies now spawn dynamically based on how many you kill (More kills = more to kill)
• Added a more swarmy behaviour to the enemy waves and spawns
• Drastically improved the overall performance
• Reworked bullet patterns of mages and added them as a modifier for Nightmare 2

Perk changes:

• New perk: Distant Mirror. 50% chance to reflect enemy projectile while attacking. (Arcane)
• Life leech now only applies to the first impact of the main frontal projectile
• Increased the chance for Life leech to trigger from 0.5% to 2%
• Removed the perk requirements for the perk Rampage
• Removed the boss related mods from the books and activated them by default
• Far Shot: Reduced projectile distance from 50% to 20%
• Fuzzy Illusion: Reduced projectile distance from 25% to 10%
• Moved Ignited Wounds to Book of Fire
• Attractive: Reduced pickup range from 100% to 80%
• Psychic: Reduced the enemy projectile slowdown from 50% to 25%
• Pacifist: Increased the timer from 5 to 10 seconds
• Daydreamer: Increased the timer from 5 to 10 seconds
• Corrected the description of Daredevil from “below 50% hp” to “while on low life”

Ascended perks get unlocked by completing Nightmare 3 with different heroes. They will upgrade perks and add powerful modifiers:

• Blades of Justice+ (Aric N3)
• Elusive Grace+ (Kaito N3)
• Mystic Volley+ (Icicle N3)
• Ignited Wounds+ (Gundel N3)
• Concentration+ (Ember N3)
• Psychic+ (Misty N3)
• Arctic Presence+ (Effy N3)

Other Unlocks:

• Bloody Hands 1-3 (5% global projectile damage)

Companions

• Companions now have their own damage type and modifier: Companion damage (Pink)
• New companion: Buffy. Attracts butterflies.
• New companion: Goblin Carrier. Opens chests for you. 50% chance to remove curses. 20% chance to die while doing so.
• Cloudy is now more aggressive
• Ice Orb now circles around the hero

Fixes

• Fixed a bug with Heat and Hotheaded not adding burn damage
• Fixed a bug with Concentration not getting applied immediately after activating the perk
• Fixed a bug with Concentration getting deactivated after getting a perk with attack speed
• Corrected the arrow pointing towards the blue butterfly
• Fixed a bug that caused butterflies to fly towards the map center
• Reduced the move area of butterflies
• Reduced the spawn range of butterflies from 14 to 10 units
• Added Blue Butterfly. Activates XP buff + xp vacuum
• Fixed the cursor again
• The gamepad mode will now automatically toggle when you press a button on your gamepad
• Fixed Gundels burn area. It applied 2 stacks of burn on first impact before, now it correctly applies 1 burn stack per second

Tweaks

• Improved the visibility of the direction arrow
• Companions now teleport to the player when they got left behind
• Changed the visual indicator for butterfly buffs
• Addes stats to the stat panel: burn chance, burn duration, frost damage, freeze chance, freeze duration
• Stat panel now shows the current aoe modifier (including temporary from concentration)
• Stat panel now shows the current attack speed (including temporary from concentration)
• Added “Always crit bosses” to the item mods
• Adjusted spawn rates in Krampus Night
• Bosses can now still attack while being frozen
• Polished the swarm effect of the Shadow Invasion
• Polished the perk upgrade preview
• Polished the UI for Unlockables and Achievements (Now with a scrollbar!)

New Achievements

• Slayer 2-3
• Entomologist: Touch a total of 300 bufferflies. Unlocks Buffy.
• Pacifist: Survive 3 minutes without attacking once.

This update includes the latest hotfix 0.163:

• Fixed a bug with Arics knockback paired with knockback damage that made the game crash
• Fixed a bug that wouldn’t let Zikk reach his full amount of chains
• All heroes now start with the book of their damage type
• Changed it so perk upgrades have a 30% chance to show in every slot instead of 100% in the middle slot
• Rerolling perks now doesn’t show the same perks twice
• Added a dedicated mode for gamepad so each mode can be better polished
• Made it easier to navigate through the hero and companion selection with gamepad/Steamdeck
• The game now automatically selects the last played hero
• Removed unnecessary mods from the stat panel
• Perk upgrades and perk synergies now show the perks that were required
• The patch already includes a fraction of the achievements and unlocks that were scheduled for 0.17
• Fixed a bug that made heroes deal no damage after using Mystic Volley+
• Fixed a major performance leak