Sandwurm Devourer Heartrune Secrets
Greetings, Adventurers!
Consume everything when the Devourer Heartrune releases alongside Blood of the Sands on July 6. We caught up with Combat Designer Josh Hurley for a glimpse into the ability’s concept, design, and challenges. The team always wanted to turn the sandwurm into a Heartrune, but burrowed through numerous iterations before landing on the final version.
“When we were asked to make a Heartrune for this release, we immediately wanted to include the Devourer. We just didn’t know exactly how we to do it. What if your arm turned into a worm and you slapped enemies with it? What if your head turned into a big Devourer mouth and you chomped down on targets? What if you threw a little bitty worm at a target, it bit their head, and then blocked their vision for a few seconds? We eventually landed on the 'summoning' aspect. Now it pops out of the ground."
“During early prototyping we used emotes as animations to set up the ability. There was a point in time where the pose to summon it used the “Wiggle Dance” emote, and although it looked kind of ridiculous, I will always love the concept of doing a little wiggly dance to summon the Devourer.”
“We wanted to add the concept of a backup attack, which we haven’t really used in prior abilities. Following our recent balance changes to separate damage from crowd control, plus the usage of Grit and Uninterruptible to prevent stagger, it creates another layer of interesting gameplay. What better way to add salt to a player’s wounds than with a chomp when they Grit their way through the initial knockback area?”
“The Devourer Heartrune has two parts to it. If a player can somehow avoid the initial knockback as it emerges, the chomp is there as a back up to deal damage. Most
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