[h1]Introduction[/h1]
[h3]Spoiler-Free Review[/h3]
Fangs of Asterkarn (FoA) introduces a new region in Cairn’s far north. After getting to Fort Ikon, a new quest allows access to the DLC content, plunging you into the snowy mountains of the Asterkarn range. What started as a search and rescue quest soon turns into an endeavor to free the Kurn lands from the corruption brought by the Grim Dawn, having you face frenzied cultists, mutated beasts and corrupted gods.
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[h1]DLC Content Analysis[/h1]
[b]Ascendant Difficulty[/b]
Once you reach Level 100 on a character, Ascendant difficulty becomes available. Unlike other cases, this one will not reset any of your quest progress, but simply scales everything while retaining your progress from Ultimate. This new mode is significantly more difficult, with a whopping +1370% to enemy HP (plus multiplayer scaling when applicable), +75% to all enemy damage, and +500% to loot quality. Resistance lowering remains the same as in Ultimate (-50%). However, the changes don’t stop here: Ascendant mode also changes other mechanics, while also adding exclusive ones.
Any time you open a loot container, there’s a roughly 50% chance to trigger a large ambush, spawning several Elite tier minibosses and dozens of normal mobs instantly at that location. These foes are usually stronger than the average ones found in the world, often having particularly annoying affixes such as Reflective, Healer and so forth. While they do give reputation for one of the new factions, on the other hand they never drop any loot; this is, ultimately, one of the most annoying additions.
The cooldown on Nemesis foes has been removed, meaning you will, without exaggeration, fight one of them every 5-10 minutes of gameplay, if you have a Warrant active. I lost count of how many times I had to deal with Cubacabra or Benn Jhar. Sure, they drop relatively valuable Nemesis Chests, but it does get tedious to constantly be spammed by them, especially while you’re going through Challenge Dungeons, areas without portals, or Hardcore Mode.
And then there’s The Dread. A superboss that randomly spawns and starts hunting you, boasting stats, skills and resistances on par with other secret Superbosses. This can happen at any time, including Challenge Dungeons, or while you’re already fighting another Boss, a Nemesis, and so forth. The good news is that, since a recent update, there’s a way to disable it, but at the cost of finding less Ascended Caches around the world. These are the last major novelty: boosted treasure troves that don’t require Dynamite to be opened, and usually drop rare materials or highly sought after set items. They’re mostly found in Domains and Dungeons.
Ultimately, I don’t think Ascendant is worth the trouble. It drops somewhat better loot, but the annoying new mechanics and enemy scaling make it more of a hassle than anything else. If you’re an achievement hunter, or feel like your build is just too good for Ultimate, then go ahead and give it a shot.
[b]Potion Modding[/b]
Cauldrons will become available in most faction headquarters once you progress enough through the DLC, enabling you to add unique modifiers to both of your potions. With three bottle types and a substantial amount of modifiers, you can drastically alter any potion’s effect to suit your build’s playstyle.
Things such as converting half of your current HP into an absorption shield, temporary high lifesteal, or improved Iron gain are only a few of the various mods you’ll acquire from reputation and specific quests. I found this addition a solid one, even though there are clearly a few potion mods that far surpass all others in terms of usefulness; a lot of them are gimmicks that you’ll never use, while others are legitimately great.
[b]Item Awakening[/b]
Certain items will drop with a purple icon near their name. That means they can be Awakened, meaning they’ll turn from blue to purple rarity, boosting their bonuses and adding new ones. This enables you to get Legendary tier gear that normally doesn’t drop as such, such as a purple Tremor mace, to name one. This feature is okay on paper, but in practice you’ll use it only for very specific items that finalize your build, since you can and will already drop plenty of equally good Purple-tier gear normally without ascending any.
I feel that, with the existing amount of total equipment we already have, this isn’t something that adds more depth to buildcrafting or allows access to unique loot. If there was a way to Awaken items past purple, to a new, higher rarity accessible only this way, then that would have been a game changer. Alas.
[b]Ascension Altar[/b]
This special altar, found in one of the DLC factions’ bases, allows you to sacrifice rare materials to get passive bonuses (and maluses) for the duration of that session. The more items sacrificed, the more potent the effects, but also the stronger your enemies will become. Buffs such as massive reputation gain from enemy kills, enhanced XP gain, or higher chances to drop gear based on a specific damage type are great, however the massive bonuses given to enemy forces mean you’ll either have to go on lower difficulties, or have an already almost-perfect build to use these features consistently to grind money or gear.
It’s a good addition for those that need to grind set items, materials or specific stuff for future playthroughs or collections, but it’s not something you’ll feasibly use on Ascendant, and by the time you can, you’ll already have maxed out everything in terms of reputation, level, and so forth, so what’s the point? It’s a hit or miss, that is very situational, not to mention, expensive in terms of materials and clear time padding.
[b]Extended Inventor Features[/b]
Inventors, after a certain point, will be able to reroll existing items within their ranges, allowing you to sacrifice specific materials to reroll anything as many times as you want, but for an increasing cost at each retry. This means you don’t have to find a new item anymore to get that perfect roll you want so much: you simply have to try your luck at the Inventor until you succeed. The grind for materials and Iron Bits might be rough if you do this often, but it’s still less painful than finding the same item again, especially with Triple Rares or low chance drops. This one is a very good addition, perhaps the best in the whole DLC.
[b]New Hidden Superboss[/b]
Asterkarn has a new Superboss in addition to The Dread. Getting to it involves undertaking the longest, most convoluted, most grindy quest ever made in this game. No other one even comes close. All of it for a unique set of debatable usefulness. There’s no achievement for this: hunters can take a sigh of relief.
[h1]Is it Worth Buying? How long does it last?[/h1]
Honestly no, it’s not worth it. The story is moderately interesting, there’s a lot of filler quests, painful faction mechanics, and a lot of annoyances. The few new good features do not counterbalance the massive pain in the butt Ascendant difficulty exclusive mechanics deliver. On a final note, Crate decided once again not to raise the Level Cap or Devotion Cap, which would be a welcome change from many players. Because they didn’t want to. They had one job, and did anything but that. Unless we want to talk about ‘balance’ in a genre whose whole point is to break the balance by crafting builds as OP as humanly possible. It takes around 15-20 hours to clear FoA, more if you are adamant on finding the new Superboss.
DISCLAIMER: Before some fanboy yells “skill issue”, "low playtime" or similar, you can check my achievements to see I cleared every dungeon and boss on Ascendant on my profile or [url=https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3797552862]here[/url].
