Right Click Examine: Sanctum of Rebirth

What is the Sanctum of Rebirth?

Sanctum of Rebirth will be our upcoming Boss Dungeon in July.

In this new Boss Dungeon experience, 1-4 players can delve into the Sanctum to take on three unique bosses across either Normal or Hard difficulty levels. Sanctum of Rebirth takes the Elite Dungeon experience and focuses it down to just the bosses, cutting out the areas packed with mobs to traverse.

We want the Sanctum to feel like a challenging series of encounters for the combat literate, but also to be less daunting as a goal for those earlier in their PvM journey.

Getting Your feedback

We want to bring your feedback on portions of the designs into our development of Sanctum of Rebirth! That means we won't be diving into the lore, how the bosses function or anything like that in this blog. Don't worry, we will be definitely giving you a broader look at Sanctum of Rebirth nearer to the launch date.

So, over the next however many words, we'll lay out some ideas in this blog alongside some feedback prompting questions for you! If you have feedback you want to add - positive, negative or anything in between! - check out the bottom of the post for where to join the discussion. Onto the concepts!

Deaths in the Sanctum

Death is a daunting concept and it's often a big roadblock to players getting stuck into a boss. With the Sanctum of Rebirth, we have the chance to try something a little new and explore an alternate death scenario for normal difficulty.

In this new death scenario, we want to try flipping the concept of deaths as a failure point and more of a stumbling block. In this design, a defeated player isn't out of the fight, just removed from it for a short time. You'll be unable to act or move for a period of time before rising back up and rejoining the fight.

The intent of this design is that dying is still punishing as your kill time is slower, but it's not as all encompassing as outright failure. This would also be limited to the normal version of the fights as we still want harder challenges to persist as things to aspire towards reaching and defeating.

It's worth mentioning this system isn't planned to replace our death mechanics either. It's just something that thematically makes sense in the Sanctum of Rebirth and could enable more players to give bossing a try in the process.

We're looking for your general impressions of this death system concept, especially if you're bossing curious. We'd love to know:

• Does an alternative death mechanic interest you?
• Would you be more open to trying bosses if you knew you could eventually win?
• Would you like to see this kind of mechanic come to other bosses?

T95 Magic Weapon Concepts

We had a TON of fun (and insight!) working with players in the recent Combat Betas, so we thought - why not try doing something new with the Beta idea?

For the first time, we're going to invite players to have a direct influence on a new T95 weapon! In a short beta from May 30th to June 6th, we're inviting players to playtest three potential concepts for our T95 Magic Dual Wield weapons to put them through their paces, give us your feedback and help us decide on the final design, This should be fun.

Players will be able to get their hands on brand new T95 Magic Dual Wield weapons in the Sanctum of Rebirth and the team have been discussing what kind of interesting effect these items could bring to the table.

After deliberating, we have settled on a few potential choices for you to put through their paces and let us know what you think.

Wand / Orb set 1 - First effect would be generating a stacking buff using non basics then consuming that buff using basic abilities for increased adrenaline. With the second benefit building off the first and giving a flat cooldown reduction for Wild Magic when the buff is consumed giving players a more stable flow of damage and adrenaline.

• 1 - Non-basic abilities generate 2 stacks of Insatiable for 3.6s. Basic abilities consume Insatiable, increasing adrenaline gain by 25%. (from 8->10 not 8→33)
• 2 - Consuming Insatiable reduces the cooldown of Wild Magic by 6s.

Wand / Orb set 2 - The second set effect would be building off from the first set but instead of a stable flow of cooldown reduction it would be a more powerful RNG effect.

• 1 - Non-basic abilities generate 2 stacks of insatiable for 3.6s. Basic abilities consume Insatiable, increasing adrenaline gain by 25%. (from 8->10 not 8→33)
• 2 - Consuming Insatiable has a 25% chance to refresh the cooldown of Wild Magic

Wand / Orb set 3 - An alternative playstyle of increasing Damage over time effects that ramps up in power the more you stack this new debuff and adds effects like refreshing their cooldowns, or making them hit instantly.

• 1 - Damage over time abilities deal 30% more damage. (only combust/corruption shot affected as the only DOT magic abilities)
• 2 - Damage over time abilities generate Essence Corruption with each hit.
• Maximum stacks: 100
• 1 Essence Corruption stack: Your Damage over time abilities have a 30% chance to empower, dealing the damage instantly and refreshing their cooldown.
• 25 Essence Corruption stacks: Deal bonus damage against enemies (100% of stacks + 100% of your Magic level).
• 50 Essence Corruption stacks: Basic abilities generate an additional 3.6% adrenaline over 6 seconds.

Each of these sets will have the Charging passive which disables the effect until the items have been worn for 9 seconds.

You will be able to pick up each version of these weapons in the Beta and try them all out to see which one you enjoy most, then you will be able to give us feedback on which of the effects should make it live.

When it comes to feedback, here's a couple of questions we'd love for you to consider:

• Which of the suggested effects are most appealing to you?
• Do weapons that have a synergy with a specific style of attacks appeal to you?

Magic Ability Changes

We think it's time to change up the relationship between Concentrated Blast and Sonic Wave (and their Greater versions).

There's currently some muddled design with Magic where Critical Strike is integral to the Fractured Staff of Armadyl, but the primary source of Critical Strikes in Magic comes from Concentrated Blast. To solve this, we're proposing a couple of ability changes:

• Concentrated Blast becomes a 2H ability
• Sonic Wave & Magma Tempest become Dual Wield abilities

The benefits of this change is opening up 2H magic to becoming the critical strike focus of Magic, while also opening up Dual Wield to other identities. We're aware this is quite a big change - one that could have economic impact on both Staves and Dual Wield weapons - so it's not something we're looking to push through without a decent amount of player feedback.

We'll be testing this out in the Beta along with the T95 Dual Wield Weapons, and we'd love for you to give it a try. We'd love to hear:

• How does this play/feel to you?
• Is this a playstyle you enjoy?
• Is there something missing that could make this more enjoyable?

Get Involved

Now you're up to speed with these concepts, we want your feedback! We'll be paying attention to conversation across the community as always, but for the most direct line to the team, we encourage you to join our Official Discord.

In our Discord, we've launched a new section called 'Right Click Examine' as the home for post-blog discussion. Head on over to #rce-chat to see what is being discussed and #rce-dev-questions to add your thoughts to ongoing questions from the development team. Click the button below to join today!

T95 & Magic Ability Beta: May 30 - June 6th

We'd love hands-on feedback for both our T95 weapon concepts and the potential changes to some Magic Abilities. Once the beta is open we will be adding instructions on how to join in this section.

Thanks for reading our first Right Click Examine blog! We're super excited to be opening up our development for your feedback and we hope you'll get involved. See you in Gielinor.

Here are a couple images/gifs that had been showcased on the stream.

- The RuneScape Team

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